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From: tad@ssc.UUCP (Tad Cook)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: The Lighter Side: An Unusual Story
Message-ID: <1786@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 89 00:27:15 GMT
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X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 550, message 10 of 12


This story about the dog providing ringing indication is an old one,
and I have heard it so many times in so many different settings
(although it is always an old lady!) that I feel it is apocryphal and
has attained the status of telephone legend.

About 10 years ago when travelling the South, Midwest and Eastern USA
doing field service for Teltone, I ran across this story, and made it
habit to ask old "tip and ringers" if they had heard this.  No matter
where I asked, someone knew of an old story from "over in the next
county" where this happended.  Sometimes the story involved a dog
chained to a drop wire that was used as a "runner"...the insulation
had worn away so that the line was noisey and the dog would yelp when
the phone rang.

My favorite is a variation of the British story.  Seems and old
telephone man was doing some maintenance "up in the holler" and talked
to a subscriber whose phone didn't ring any longer, but they had a dog
with ESP who could tell when someone was calling them.  The dog was
chained to the ground lead (party line with ground connected ringer)
and the ground wire was broken off before it reached the ground.  The
poor old hound provided a resistive path for the 90 volts, and let out
a howl whenever someone called.

Tad Cook
tad@ssc.UUCP