Saturday, April 6, 2013

Daily Briefing For Saturday (evening), April 6, 2013

Negligent or Accidental Discharge?

Kate is our new dog.  She's about two years old, and she's really bright.  We got her from an animal shelter about a week after Foxy passed away.  We love her dearly, but she finds ways to challenge us that we didn't expect.

Today is a prime example.  We own about ten acres which border the Austin city limits (we're on the unincorporated side of the line, thank goodness).  We let the dogs run off leash on the property.   Foxy loved every minute of it.  We were hoping Kate would, too. 

This was Kate's second time to the property today.  Much to our chagrin, she took off and got into the woods, causing us to have to look for her for over 45 minutes.  At one point, we thought we'd lost her forever, but she finally circled back to us.  Needless to say, she is not on the good doggie list.

On the way home, Kate managed to create additional chaos, discharging one of the fire extinguishers I carry inside the truck.  The extinguisher was aimed at Kendel who managed to take the brunt of the powder when it went off. 

Upon examination of the extinguisher, I found the safety pin had broken, and a piece of it was lying on the truck's floorboard.  Despite the fact the retention cord was supposed to hold the pin in place and protect it from breaking off, the pin failed.  And so when Kate put her paw on the trigger, it set the extinguisher off.

Some observations:

  • Where should you keep a fire extinguisher in your vehicle?  I keep mine in an organizer that fits on the back of the driver's seat.  I can get out of the truck and have it deployed in seconds.  Is that the best place to carry it?

  • What precautions should I take to prevent this from happening again?  Most people don't bother with putting retention cord on the safety pin, but because I'm a bad ass operator like Rick Taylor, I do.  Turns out being a bad ass operator didn't prevent Kendel from getting spooged with mono ammonium phosphate because Kate decided to put her little paw on the trigger.  By the way - NOT letting the dogs ride in the truck isn't an option.  This is Texas.

  • Is an ABC extinguisher the right one for my truck?  I like the fact it can stop a wide spectrum of fire types.  But I am open to re-thinking this.


I still have one extinguisher in my truck.  I need to think about putting some sort of protective covering over the gauge and trigger to prevent something like this from happening again.  I will keep you posted on my efforts.  In the meantime, I need to go out and clean my truck to remove the monoammoniumnotgonnaworkhereanymore my detail guys at the car wash missed this afternoon. 

And Kate needs to figure out how to get out of the dog house with her momma.

No comments:

Post a Comment