08-19-2006, 02:08 AM
In my previous post http://forums.macresource.com/read/1/151166 I described my dilemma about a neighbor who complained about my barking dog. I got lots of very thoughtful replies on how to handle the situation. I even got some replies which did nothing to help but which I totally expected and appreciated. Thanks to all.
So onto the follow-up...
First of all, let me just say that I'm concerned about the situation and want to make things right with my dog and my neighbors. When my dog barks at random stuff I just can't stand it, so I know exactly how a neighbor might feel. So the first thing I did was to see if the problem really did exist. I hooked up my iSight to my PB and pointed the iSight out one of my backyard windows. Fired up Evocam (great security software) and set it up to record just audio. I left it running when I went to work on Thursday. Came home after about 6 hours and loaded the resulting QT file into iMovie so I could see the waveform of the audio to tell where my dog might be barking. Sure enough, there were a ton of little spikes throughout the length of the file. Almost all were barks. Crap. When I got the first note about the barking, I recorded for 3 days and got just a handful of barks, but now it was a different story. I could totally see why somebody would get pissed.
So what to do... I went out and bought a shock collar! (sorry BGnR I had to do it :-) ) No, I bought one of these ultrasonic collars. Same principle as the shock collar, but with an ear piercing alarm instead of a shock. I put it on my dog and watched him... after some time he heard something in the creek and went to check it out, he barked, the alarm went off and he jumped... no more barking. Now for the real test. Put it on him this morning and started the recording. Just two barks the whole day. I'm sure it would have been a lot more had it not been for the collar.
Now we'll start working on some positive reinforcement to get his behaviour in line. Hopefully the collar is a short term thing.
I go to see the neighbor tomorrow to make amends. Wish me luck. Thanks again to everyone for their inputs. I'll let you know how it goes.
So onto the follow-up...
First of all, let me just say that I'm concerned about the situation and want to make things right with my dog and my neighbors. When my dog barks at random stuff I just can't stand it, so I know exactly how a neighbor might feel. So the first thing I did was to see if the problem really did exist. I hooked up my iSight to my PB and pointed the iSight out one of my backyard windows. Fired up Evocam (great security software) and set it up to record just audio. I left it running when I went to work on Thursday. Came home after about 6 hours and loaded the resulting QT file into iMovie so I could see the waveform of the audio to tell where my dog might be barking. Sure enough, there were a ton of little spikes throughout the length of the file. Almost all were barks. Crap. When I got the first note about the barking, I recorded for 3 days and got just a handful of barks, but now it was a different story. I could totally see why somebody would get pissed.
So what to do... I went out and bought a shock collar! (sorry BGnR I had to do it :-) ) No, I bought one of these ultrasonic collars. Same principle as the shock collar, but with an ear piercing alarm instead of a shock. I put it on my dog and watched him... after some time he heard something in the creek and went to check it out, he barked, the alarm went off and he jumped... no more barking. Now for the real test. Put it on him this morning and started the recording. Just two barks the whole day. I'm sure it would have been a lot more had it not been for the collar.
Now we'll start working on some positive reinforcement to get his behaviour in line. Hopefully the collar is a short term thing.
I go to see the neighbor tomorrow to make amends. Wish me luck. Thanks again to everyone for their inputs. I'll let you know how it goes.
