My daughter’s boyfriend bought an item for me to use on my Puppy. It is something that has been advertised on the late night barkers channel and plastered all over a coupon on the back page of a grocery store flyer. It is a battery operated device that is suppose to control your dogs incessant barking by using high frequency waves that can only be detected by dogs. Or , possibly your sixteen year old son.
This three inch plastic made-in-a-remote-area-of-cheapness, houses a nine volt battery and emits a high frequency sound that resonates every time your dog barks. There are two levels that occur in this cycle of transparent noise: High and Low.
This small appliance is the size of a cell phone and operates up to twenty feet away. It is a remote tool which ends up in various places much like the remote from my T.V. in the family room. My remote for the television has legs because it wanders aimlessly throughout the house. I found a lovely basket to place all the entertainment apparatus which sits atop the coffee table one foot from the couch, which means a mere outstretched- arms -reach could cover the radius of placing the remote in it’s proper place. It is a simple convenience accompanied by simple science, but aggravated by lazy couch potatoes who have a “control” issue. They find it adhered to their palm and it winds up in areas that could possibly never find any reception, like the bathroom, or under the sofa cushion, or God forbid, in one’s suitcase.
Our new “Bark-B-Gone” toy travels with us from room to room as the dog follows clasping his paws over his ears. This little receptive instrument does not give any implication that it is on and working. There is no LED light blinking, there is no sound resonating, there are no beeps , blips, or flashes to insinuate it is in working order. This piece of PETrochemicals just sits and stares into the rooms without focusing on a target, very much like I do at times.
My puppy started his seven o’clock ritual of barking at air and this “bark-no-more” piece of crap did nothing but glare at a wall with its seeing eye glazed over. It wasn’t until I walked over and plucked it from its holster and steadily held it above my pup like a priest holding a cross over Emily Rose that my dog Charly turned his head around and ignored the “Bark-Never-Again” contraption. And only then, did his right ear slowly raise like an antenna on an old Rambler sedan. That seem to have lasted a mere second as he turned his head around and continued his barking at the drapery patterns.
I had rendered this thing useless until my sixteen year old son came stumbling down the stairs with his palms covering both ears and screaming at me to to “turn of the high pitch sound”. I managed to quiet the pup yet my son was still holding his head and complaining about the white noise in the room. I told him that Charly is actually WHITE with black spots.
At that moment I realized my son has a sensitivity to electromagnetic high frequency waves which could cause irrefutable damage to his hearing. I’m sure his blasting Slipknot and Eminem through his Skull Candy from his Ipod mini at 300 decibels isn’t an issue. I just realized that my son could hear the noise from the mute plastic box that was meant for my dog’s ears. I just realized that he woke up before noon stumbling down to where this little toy box sat on the kitchen counter, utter a nearly complete sentence at me to “shut off that sound, it’s hurting my ears“.
That SOUND that my dog would scoff at and “no one else could hear”, the ad stated……..
I just realized that this $9.99 special from QVC could retrieve my son from farther than twenty paces at a rabbits pace, and the setting was on “low”.
I Just realized I now hold the secret to life. The secret of getting a “teen” up and on time for school in the morning…….
Charlywalker's Blog 