what a nightcam is good for
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title: What a Night Cam Is Good For
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date: 2022-02-04T19:55:00+01:00
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tags:
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- braindump
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---
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Eight years ago, when our Golden Retriever, Miel, was still a young puppy, we wondered what he was up to when we were out working all day. I felt bad having to leave him home alone, with all that energy and social craving. A part of puppy training included bench training, but was he all right with that? Did he try to break out a lot? Was he barking all the time? We didn't know.
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Until I cooked up a tiny Node application that periodically takes snapshots using the embedded webcam of my MacBook, streamed to a URL via a websocket. The project [websocket-webcam](https://github.com/wgroeneveld/websocket-webcam) meant I could check up on Miel while at work.
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The result was both a relief and a bit of a disappointment. Miel did nothing but sleep---even our cat joined in and settled for the blankets on top of Miel's bench! It's too bad I lost those captures.
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Fast forward eight years to today, and we're again wondering what Miel does when we're not here---that is, when we're asleep. Our couch (not leather) started amassing suspicious amounts of dog hair combined with a funny smell. He knows he's not allowed on the couch and has one of his own (he likes a lot), and never does it when we're around.
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![](../nightcam-hondje.jpg "Busted, Miel! What are you doing there?")
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Until we deployed a night-cam to check up on him. It turns out that the rascal crawls onto the couch at 3AM and gets back out around 4:30. Miel is getting old, and joint issues, especially the hips, are starting to become a problem, which is typical for Golden Retrievers. That's another reason to take it easy and avoid the needless jumping.
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But I could never be angry with Miel. I love the hairiness, smelliness, happiness, playfulness, slackness, and oldness of him. And I'm fairly certain he loves us right back. Compared to our two cats, I feel fairly comfortable writing this. With cats, you never now if they're using you or if you're using them. With Miel, you know.
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---
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The reason for the purchase of the night-cam was actually trying to record that ruckus at night above our heads on the attic (which is between the timber frame and isolation). It sounded like a bunch of muskrats, or perhaps a beech marten. Kristien once had the isolation of her car ripped out thanks to those furry animals.
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The answer was much more mundane, yet as annoying:
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![](../nightcam-muizen.jpg "Great, two mice in-between torn isolation.")
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Yup---mice. We've been plagued by their noise on and off for about five months now and tried all sorts of things: the animal-friendly trap (didn't bite), the not-so-animal poisonous lures (didn't bite), and the conventional cheese traps (didn't bite). A friend told me he had great success with peanut butter. I might have been watching too much _Tom & Jerry_ back in the day.
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The problem is the alarming reproductive rate of those little animals combined with the destructive appetite for our isolation, as they are capable of digesting about anything. It's an on-going battle. They've laid low for a while, but we're ready for another strike.
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Perhaps next week we could tie the cam to a tree in the backyard and record some wildlife. One thing is certain: it's much more fun to try and record our dog's behavior than to monitor the activity of those pesky mice.
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