It’s been a couple of years since our pet Cocoa passed away, and for the past few months I’ve been entertaining the idea of a new furry friend in the house. I’m very happy to say that this week we brought a new dog into the family, world, meet Bower!
He is a Beagle X Cavalier, a Beaglier if you will. Not a puppy, he is 6 years old already and is well mannered, great with kids, and loves playing around. He is working out to be a great addition to the family and I’m very happy to have a friend to hang out with in the workshop again.
But seeing as we have been ‘dogless’ for the past couple of years, I’ve managed to forget a couple of little annoyances about pet ownership. The main thing I forgot about? The (literal) crap in the garden! It’s everywhere and I pledge to my wife that I’ll change things up to make the garden a lot nicer around here very soon.
The other main thing which always annoyed me are standard dog bowls. They have a cavity underneath them which gets taken over by spiders; and then there is the sound of a metal food bowl being nosed around on the bricks in the backyard. That horrible screech travels right through the house and punches me in the face! I hate it!
To solve that problem I spent a couple of hours building this attractive little stand to hold two bowls, one water and one food. They are basic metal mixing bowls, so the underneath has no cavity for spiders to nestle, and the wooden stand will keep them in the one place, so no sound of being pushed.
I thought about a couple of designs for this stand, my only thought was that I didn’t want the standard dog bone shape or something painted. Originally I planned on using sliding dovetails for the leg joints. However I really wanted the legs to be on an angle as well, and I just couldn’t visualise how I would cut those angles accurately on a table saw. With a router I’d have a chance but the one in my table is out of service at the moment.
So I decided to instead use an angled dado. This worked out really well and I love the look of the table, it has a really nice stance. Once again I’ve used merbau decking offcuts to make this, the wood looks lovely with a few coats of poly on it. I didn’t go overboard with the finish, this is going to be covered in food and water everyday, I’ll just resand and recoat every year.
So, hope you like it. I think I’m going to go take my new mate for a walk now, so until next time, have fun!