Barking Dog

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Bern
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Barking Dog

Post by Bern »

I read what I could find in history on barking dog problems, and it appears nothing recently. What are the latest updates on systems? Where is a good source of transducers, like speakers or piezo units for the job? Which is the best? My problem is almost every afternoon, the owners are gone for about four hours, and the dog is outside. Otherwise it is mostly inside. It barks most of the time they are gone. It stands at the end of their driveway, looking down the road, and barks. Normally it is 30 to 40 feet from my fence line where I can put a system. Is it best to manually trigger the system, or have it triggered by the bark? What worked for you? Thanks,
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Chris Smith
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Post by Chris Smith »

I took care of that problem over twenty years ago with a 100 watt amp, a piezoelectric speaker, and a 555 fully adjustable noise generator.

I cranked up the frequency way past the human hearing range, then set the amp way up high, then played around with the frequencies between the Hi 20s and 50 K until all the cats in the neighborhood were AWOL, and all the dogs went silent.
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dacflyer
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Post by dacflyer »

oh boy...i feel your pain...i went thru the same thing a few years ago.
i seriously was about to go on the brink of insanity.. the neighbors dogs were pittbulls.. i would be washing dishes, and they would see me thru the window, and start biting at my fence..and they would also bark anytime i tried to do anything in the yard..they also would bark at any hr of the night.. i had called the neighbors 2-3-4-am and threaten them to shut the dogs up or else.. finally i had to call the cops, and that still was no good, then i had to call the pound,,they did nothing also...so then my last resort was to call the county manager... OH BOY ! did something ever get done then.... come to find out they hadn't paid taxes on the dogs in a long time..and so they was fined big time...also later on. the barkling continued,, i called the city manager again... and later for some reason the dogs dissapeared.....and about 2 months later the neighbors moved away...

but i had also tried the hi pitched hi powered noise makers..even ultrasonic,, this too was useless..
even spraying them with water failed...
i had lost so much sleep, i was on the verge of shooting them,,it was hell then..

but anyway, i wish you luck in your problem solving.. i have dogs also and they know better then to bark, unless theres a stranger walking by too close to the fence.. otherwise mine are quiet.
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Bob Scott
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Post by Bob Scott »

Only if you are continually frustrated to the limit with repeated lack of sleep from a barking neighbor's dog at 2 AM, and have to get up at 5 AM to go to work, should you consider getting a leftover piece of sausage from the fridge, stuffing it with a couple of sleeping pills, and throwing it over the fence.

Of course I'd never do this myself because MY neighbor is a marvelously considerate type of person, and you would have to take the approximate weight of the dog into consideration when calculating the number of pills. ;)

It would be nice to have some peace and quiet whilst stringing speaker wire in the back yard at 3AM instead of doing it when the rottlweiler next door is chewing through the fence.

Bob :cool:
Bern
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Post by Bern »

It appears like I need to get a piezoelectric speaker. Any suggestions from anyone about where to get one? I have looked through some catalogs, but no luck.
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GoingFastTurningLeft
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Post by GoingFastTurningLeft »

i'm suprised distributors like mouser, digi-key, etc don't carry them, being that they're used in cheapo toys & greeting cards all the time

If you have enough trouble, go look through the toys at goodwill or something. Most of the time they're good for twice their value in parts, if they were made in the 80's/early 90's. Don't be afraid to bring a couple screwdrivers with you so you know what you're buying. :D

Actually, I think I once bought a toy keyboard at a dollar store that used a pretty basic VCO, a resistor divider network, and a piezo. Can you guess how much it cost?
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philba
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Post by philba »

before you go buying a piezo speaker, take a look at the frequency response curve. Most of them roll way off before 20K.

I'm quite skeptical of any claims of this sort of thing working: poor ultrasonic frequency response of the speaker, poor ultrasonic frequency response of the amplifier (they tend to roll off too), ultrasonics are pretty directional (needs to be pointed right at the animal) and the likelihood of the animals actually being bothered by a noise in that range (they don't seem bothered by other noises that much).

most tweeters tend to roll off above 15K and above 15K, their impedence rises pretty fast. Planar tweeters seem to do a little better but above 20K they, too, roll off. Some manufacturers claim up to 26K but even then a look at the frequency response curve shows a fast roll off. The best specs I saw at partsexpress were on this unit: http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl ... er=275-085
but it has a very pronounced roll off at 30 degrees off axis. $32


good luck
Bern
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Post by Bern »

Yes, there are a lot of piezeos out there, however I cannot find any that are rated for the type of power it sounds like I need. Those that are about an inch or inch and a half in Dia, I don’t think is what I need. But then I may be wrong about what I really need. When I hear speaker, I think about something larger. Am I out in left field here?
Robert Reed
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Post by Robert Reed »

Bern
Well now you have pushed the right button to get me involved. 3 years after we moved into this neighborhood, we had a housing boom, and all the newcomers had dogs- big woofing dogs, little yapping dogs and barking all the time from every direction. Got so I didn't want to step outdoors. eventually it started to slack off, but one pain in the a** remains. It is across the street and about 150 ft. away, but it sounds like it is standing right in front of you.
For starters, go back to page 45 in the posts. There you will find a lengthy discussion that I started under the heading of "Sound Power". I am currently still at war with this dog and my latest device is still in the "feild testing" stage. Heres my history on this subject so far:
Forget piezos as their impedance is to high for any practical amplifier (70 ohms). First attempt with these,I jacked the voltage up slowly trying to get to its so called 50 watt rating. At 2 watts of true driving power it literally disintegrated - Manufacturers lies!
Next attempt- an 80 watt compression tweeter which I purchased from Parts Express for $40. Drove it with half of that power (38 watts) for 30 minutes and it literally melted down. And this was after the people at Parts Express assured me that I could do this. Called them and explained in detail what took place and they said to return it to them. I wasn't happy about the return shipping costs but I figured they would be sending me a new one shortly. Got a call about a week later and they said that I abused the speaker and would not issue a replacement. Now I'm not only out the $40 purchase price but also the $6 return shipping fee, so all I got for my money was to give them a good reaming out over the phone. Will never do bussiness with them again-Retailer's lies.
My latest attempt is with a 250 watt rock concert 3 in. voice coil compression tweeter (got it for a steal on E-Bay). 40 watts of power for hours and it barely gets warm. so the first hurdle is covered. As I mentioned, my 'nemisis' s i50 ft. away, so it will take a fair amount of power to get to it, assuming a 6 DB rolloff per octave of distance.
Now here is where you have to pay attention to detail of design and that is the speakers SPL. You need the highest you can find, as ultimately you want to put at least 110 DB right at the dogs ears. Most tweeters and especially piezos have an SPL of 90-96 DB. That wont cut it as you would need a 1000 watt amplifier to bring the SPL up to the range you need(most speakers would go up in smoke long before this). Adding more speakers in parrellel wont do it ether as you only gain 3 DB of SPL every time you double their amount ( unless you dont mind an array of 64 speakers out in your yard). Also when increasing speakers, you subsequently have to increase power to maintain their rated levels (A double whammy here). My current speaker is rated at 109 DB for SPL. This is the equivelant of 32 speakers rated at an SPL of 94 DB, so you can see my point of going for the highest SPL you can afford. I would have liked to gone higher as I have seen some rated at 115 DB SPL but it was too expensive. I have devised an audio control to give a span of frequencies - in steady tone, pulsed tone and warble tone, but as I said - experiments have just begun so nothing is conclusive yet. Also in researching dogs hearing, they have a flat response all the way to 20 Khz and then it starts to roll off. Other than that, they respond just like us humans do, so loud noise is irritating at any frequency.
Good luck on your project and keep us posted as will I do when I complete my experimentation.
Engineer1138
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Post by Engineer1138 »

Am I the only one here who wonders if he's talked to the owner of the dog? Called Animal Control, or similar in his area? Some animals are extremely attached to their owners and develop separation anxiety when they leave.
Solution may be as simple as giving the dog it's owner's old shirt or something to sleep on, so it feels more comfortable alone.
Bern
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Post by Bern »

Yes, I have talked to the owners. Their basic comment is, no, their dog does not bark, it must be the other neighbors dog. (Back to my neighbor) The dog also does a lot of barking when they are home. Their comment then is that they don’t hear it. ( They are quite elderly, and normally have the TV turned up so high that they can’t hear much of anything else.) Anyway, I am looking for a method that won’t hurt the dog, doesn’t cause any hard feelings, but somehow gets some piece and quite back in the neighborhood. I know that other neighbors are also irritated.
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haklesup
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Post by haklesup »

Find out if it is licenced. If not, you have grounds for at least one visit by the dog officer but that's playing hard ball and you have at least some more opportunity to convince the owners by showing them a video tape or something similarly incontrovertable. Ultimately they probably don't know what to do about it anyway so come with suggestions other than getting rid of it.

As far as loud sounds, how about a dog whistle powered by an air compressor. Mechanical sound production (loud) is often easier than electronic. An air solenoid valve can be connected to the detector just the same as an amplifier. Some even have adjustable pitch (just a screw to change the size of the resonating chamber). A cone can be fashoned to make it directional so other dogs aren't tortured. No meltdown guaranteed.

With one this cheap: http://www.dog.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=3119 ... de=DNEXTAG you could make a whole ultrasonic pipe organ for a pittance.

I found that making friends with the dog directly sometimes helps. Eventually the bark changes from an alert to a hello friend bark and can be stopped by acknowledging the animal. This works best with next door dogs who know you by sight and sound.
bigkim100
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Post by bigkim100 »

Why am I the only one here that thinks that bathing a dog in ultrasonic frequencies will cause the dog to bark MORE.??
As far as filling a dog full of human tranquelizers...that will kill the average dog, and around here will get you time in jail.
As far as Im concerned, torturing a dog is WRONG.....for doing exactly what a dog was born to do.
Whats going to happen when the kids on the street are playing too loud for you....you going to scramble their grey matter with subsonic blasts?
If you are aiming ultrasonic frequencies around, and someone puts in a complaint to the police that it in any way is harming the dog.....you'll be the one left with the hefty fine....and if the neighbours come down with a headache....even a imagined one, expect to be arrested for assault with a dangerous weapon.
Itll be hard to prove that its you and you subsonic generator....but even harder to prove that it wasnt you.
Kim..The man with the cute little girls name...and Frankensteins face and body.
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Externet
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Post by Externet »

There is no simple solution, or better said, the simple solution is too drastic.
What we do not know is the sound pressure level needed to annoy the dog. Aiming to a very high power may not be necessary. Try the pest repellers sold at stores, they may be effective to the application; fast to implement and test at a low cost. Seen a 3 pack for $10. A few of them aiming to the fence should work with a heterodining effect that should make them more effective.
The general rule is that the owners of barking dogs are deaf idiots. In my case, the police always responds to my complains immediately, annoying the dog owners and works well.
Let us know progress...
Miguel
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Chris Smith
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Post by Chris Smith »

The right sound WILL cause Dogs, Cats, and Humans to become "incontinent" on contact.

Psycho-Tronic’s has been around since WWII,.... it works,.... it works well on all MAMMALS,.....and it scares the hell out of even those who know the type of sound is on the way,......... to relieve one self!
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