So when I’m not at home during lunch, how can my puppy be fed? I dont trust anyone with our house key. I was thinking along the lines of having an alarm clock with something on it thats spins around when the alarm goes off and tying a string to that and tying the other end to a heavy piece of cardboard on top of the bowl. that way when the alarm goes off, the thing will rotate, pulling the string and the cardboard off the bowl. is this a good idea? any pitfalls?

any better ideas/suggestions would be warmly welcomed as I have noo idea where to buy such a clock.

There was an earthquake in Los Angeles (where I live) a week or so ago. Ever since then, my 10 month old puppy has been barking at absolutely everything. She wakes me up in the middle of night if she hears the neighbor closing their door or a car alarm or a baby crying a block away. It is driving me nuts and for this reason I am loosing sleep as she barks randomly and wakes me up four or five times a night.

In doing some research I found that sometimes squirting water on a dog from a water gun when they bark at something unnecessary will help. I have tried this method and although somewhat effective the insistent barking still happens. I understand that as dogs grow into adults barking is a thing they do and in many cases is a way to get attention. I feel like she is doing so about half the time but at night is seems more to be nerves.

Any suggestions? I need my beauty rest.

My puppy is crate trained. We wake up about an hour earlier than we have to in the morning to let her out and let her play for a while, then she stays in her crate for about 8 hours during the day while me and hubby are at work, then she’s out from the time we get home until about 11-ish, when it’s bedtime. Then she goes BACK in her crate until 6:30 when we let her out in the morning. Her crate is downstairs in the living room, and our bedroom is just upstairs. When she hears my alarm clock go off in the morning, she barks her HEAD off until we come downstairs, preventing us from snoozing, and irritating us through the getting dressed/bathroom/before we go downstairs routine. How do we get her to stop barking and just WAIT on us?
Look, to you people that wanna get nasty about it, she’s only in there until she’s completely potty trained, then she’ll have free rein at night, no problem. So shut up. >:-( We love her, and she loves us, and we’re not "cruel" to her, as some of you are implying…

I am a novice Linux server admin (I can us SSH, vi, cron, and understand config files), but I am willing to learn. However, I do not have hundreds of hours to research and learn all the ins-and-outs of Linux. I need something fairly turnkey:

What is the best server software that will do all or most of the following:
- POP3 server
- SMTP server
- Webmail server (with good standard features, like WYSIWYG editor, attachments, etc.)
- Web-based end-user configuration tools
- Anti-virus
- Anti-spam (blacklists and whitelists & RBL support required, spam filtering logic a plus)
- Authentication data stored in a database for easy management.
- POP-before-SMTP authentication

Similarly, I need to pick the best Linux OS to run this puppy on. I would like an OS with a wizard install, and one with adequate security for a publicly accessible server.

Last of all, it would be great if all of the above would be freely available for commercial use.

Thanks for your help!

Today while I was in class, my boyfriend was at my house watching our new puppy. Around 1pm, these 2 punks decided to pop the lock on the front door and welcome themselves into my house. My boyfriend scared them away and thankfully he or my puppy wasn't hurt. I don't live in a bad area and around this time last year, we had a serious break in where a bunch of our stuff was stolen. A lot of people in my neighborhood have also had this happen to them. We're getting an alarm installed but what are some other good ways to protect the house?
He did call the police after he chased them out of the house.

Since a recent break-in of my garage, i was wondering what home alarm company does the best job and is affordable for the the service they provide? I would love to just get a trained german shepard but i have 3 cats….. unless the money i spend to get a puppy (so i can train it around the cats) will equal to the amount to what I would spend on an alarm system. what is your opinion?