A dog story. Customer will not be home, but the back door is open. I go in, and start tuning the grand piano. About 20 minutes into the tuning I look over and see a 4' high Great Dane. He looks at me, and I look at him. He starts coming towards me, very slowly. I don't know if he sizing me up for his mid day meal, or just wants to say hi. I'm still holding on to the tuning hammer on the pin, just in case. He sticks his huge head under my right hand, and just gives me a big lick. He just barely looks up from his nap when i leave the house. A little different story. I arrive at the house, and hear people talking in the back yard. I walk down the driveway, and when I entered the back yard, a German Sheppard sees me. He runs towards me, barking, with the people yelling for him to stop. I back up as fast as I can, and just as he gets about a foot away, and is about to lunge at me, he is yanked back by the chain around his neck. I don't remember what happened after that, but I do remember that dog coming within a foot of taking a bite out of my neck. Wim -----Original Message----- From: paul bruesch <paul at bruesch.net> To: pianotech <pianotech at ptg.org> Sent: Thu, Apr 19, 2012 11:30 am Subject: Re: [pianotech] A new use for piano benches I'll say it. I do not like pit bulls. And I'm tempering my language. I live in a rather small town, and in the house I used to live in, I only locked the doors if I would be gone for overnight or longer. The backyard neighbor has a pit bull, and warned me not to stick my hand over the fence. Yeah, so why do you have it? Ya' growing pot in there? Cookin' meth? That's the only reason to have a pit bull, IMO. I know, I know... they can be bred gentle or bred tough. But IMO they're never bred cute. I have a longtime (for me) customer with a couple of Weimaraner (big hunting) dogs. They'd always be barking themselves hoarse and stupid when I pull up, only to be very friendly once I got to the piano. Except last year. When she let them out of the front room, one of them bounded up the stairs at me and snapped at my arm... no blood, but bruised and it hurt for a day or so. They (the people) were about as shocked as I was. Dog went to the back room for the duration. She offered her services (no no no, as a financial planner). I declined, I was fine, they were incredibly apologetic and acted immediately. This year, the dogs were nowhere to be seen the whole time I was there! And I got a great (as great as a cell phone can do) shot of a Pileated Woodpecker on their deck. Thing about all this is... I didn't used to care much for dogs, but nowadays I find myself contemplating the notion of having one myself. Probably won't happen, at least for a while, but that change of heart has come about because of the dogs I encounter day to day at customers' homes. Paul Bruesch Stillwater, MN On Thu, Apr 19, 2012 at 12:43 PM, Rob McCall <rob at mccallpiano.com> wrote: I've found a new use for piano benches... I had a lot of work on a 1967 Wurlitzer console. It had a couple of broken strings, I repinned a few flanges, reshaped the hammers, etc. While putting the action back in, I was trying to get the dowels for the pedals to seat in their respective spots on the action. So here I am, flat on my back on the carpet under the the piano with my hand reaching under to fit the dowel, when I look to my left and I see that the wife has just let their Pit-bull into the house. I'm looking at him from about 20 feet away through the legs of the piano bench when he decides I must be an intruder. He starts growling and snarling and running towards me. I'm sure the surge of adrenaline helped me to get off my back and on my feet quicker than I have in probably 20 years! I grabbed the legs of the piano bench on the way up and tilted the seat bottom directly at the dog, creating a nice wooden barrier between me and the salivating and barking Pitbull. The owners came running out and it took them several tense minutes (seconds?) to get him under control and back outside. And I didn't even get a tip... ;-) Regards, Rob McCall McCall Piano Service, LLC www.mccallpiano.com Murrieta, CA 951-698-1875 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20120419/92637202/attachment.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC