Dotty, I wish I could say I was almost your neighbour, but I live in Langley on the mainland. We phoned around to quite a few companies for the gate installation. Remember that the driveway is 400m long. Every company we phoned said they would come over to see the site and give a quote.The company we picked was the only guy who said he would stop by and actually drove up to the house to talk to us. The other sales reps stopped by, unbeknownst to us, looked at the end of the driveway and phoned later saying that yes, they could put a gate in. They had been told the driveway was long, come up to the house to let us know you've arrived. Some people just play at work I guess. This winter, I went to Lee Valley Tools and got an automatic deer scare that is a sprinkler with a motion sensor run by a 9 volt battery. It hooks to a garden hose. I'm guessing it will work on them a couple times and they will learn that going ''there'' gets them wet and then you move it to a new spot. It works day or night which would mean being aware of it as you stroll down the path nonchalantly only to be blasted with cold water while admiring your own garden... or worse, your guests, though I can think of a few people I would ask to come for a stroll and innocently profess having totally forgotten about that contraption. Here is a link that might be useful: deer scare

The fact that Nunyette poops in the house is not going to make me get rid of her or anything like that. I *really* don't want her pooping in the house, especially knowing she has no reason to do so. If Nunyette is going to potty, it's always before she gets obsessive. And yes, I can direct her attention away from acorns by playing with light and shadows, but she is just as obsessive about chasing light and shadows that it really doesn't help anything. If it's not acorns or shadows, she's not interested, unless the neighbor's cat is in the yard and then she's all about watching her. I don't let her chase the cat, so she sits down and just stares at her until she gets out of sight. Luckily the cat has enough sense to vacate the yard when the dogs are out. The only reason she stops eating acorns or chasing shadows is because she obeys me when I tell her to come inside. None of her toys including the favorite ball can pull her away from acorns or shadows. If she doesn't poop right away, then it isn't going to happen, whether she actually HAS to poop or not. I can try to muzzle her after she potties outside and see what she does. Obviously I don't want her to hate being outside. I don't know if she's ever worn a muzzle- she certainly hasn't since I've had her. I'll borrow one from work and see how it goes. The only bad thing is that she wouldn't be able to play fetch with the muzzle on either. The nice big back yard was not intended to be *just* a doggie potty, it was also supposed to be a place where we can all play together or at least the dogs can play together, safely without destroying the house. But getting her to poop ONLY outside trumps learning to play in the yard any day. Thanks to all for the help so far. I'll keep posting our progress.

On the good side.... the insteon switches have been more reliable than I expected. I haven't had a single one go out in 18 months now (I have probably 30); I expected more failure. I have had 3 or 4 times an individual switch has seemed to 'die' for an unclear reason, but each time pulling the little tab in the bottom that disconnects the power and reconnect it has fixed the issue. The basically function as I expect them to. Also on the good side they seem to function well as just regular light switches which is nice (i.e. my wife doesn't harass me about the tech because she can use normally) On the bad side... I haven't found it to be super life changing or anything; hitting a button to shut off all lights when leaving is nice. Telling Amazon Alexa with my voice to set scenes is cool, especially when lazy on the couch. But frankly I haven't used it as much as I would have thought. I guess a lifetime of turning switches on and off gets programmed in. Looking back it is probably a worthwhile upgrade from 25-30$ /ea nice dimmers, probably not worth the upgrade from cheap $1 switches. The only other not so idea thing my wiring was done for old school lighting, and my switch locations hooked up the same. But I put LEDs in everywhere. So I have a lot of spots where a single dimmer controls say 6 cans, but they suck so little power that my Insteon dimmer switch doesn't have very granular control. Basically I get a little dimming on the lowest couple of settings on the switch. If insteon had a switch for LEDs (they might now) or if you have higher loads on your switch circuits I think you would see better results. It hasn't bothered me too much as I don't want to dim much most of my lighting is just having specific sections of light fully on or fully off.

Bbstx, we just got our wireless deadbolt, and we got it at Lowe's. It is Schlage BE489WB, but you can probably get it at other stores. Ours is black instead of nickel because that's what they had in stock at the store. Home Depot did not have any locks exactly like this. With this one, I can control it with my Smart Phone (I do not have an iPhone), and I can create, monitor, and control up to 100 codes that I create myself. I have not had any glitches with it, but then we just got it. We installed it ourselves, and it was very easy, although we did have to adjust the length of the bolt, which is extremely easy but necessary to check before installing. I have not seen the wireless locks for outdoor gates, but I will ask the pool company, as they have given me a lot of good information. I am thinking that I could get by with a non-electric lock that just has a keypad for entry and no batteries. I would need one that I could change myself from time to time on site, and I will also install a security light with camera just inside the gate so that I can see who enters the gate. There is already a wall sconce installed there, and so I can just change it to a Kuna light, which we have at the front there and also at our front door here.