Our cute little doggy sometimes barks a little too much. Sometimes (rarely) for attention, at strangers (when they visit our neighbour or if our next-door neighbour talks a bit loud), and at any other animal that strays into her yard (birds for example).

It's not bad, it's worse when she's showing off to other dogs who are visiting, usually she's fairly quiet, but there are times when we just need her to stop.

The usual theory is praise when she's good (ie. randomly go out when she isn't barking and give her a treat), and ignore her when she's barking, but that doesn't work when we ignore her all day regardless of what she's doing.

So we bought a Dog-Off. It's a little device that fires off an ultrasonic noise that our dog can hear. The noise it makes is audible but either they've added an audible element or what we hear is much quieter that what the dog hears. It also has a personal alarm and a flashlight.

She hates it, it makes her bark. A lot. But, with practice she has learnt that if she barks, it causes the annoying noise, so maybe, just maybe, she shouldn't bark. It just might work. Eventually.

We have learnt over the past year the different kinds of barks she does. Some are warnings there is someone walking past the back fence (starts with almost a howl), some are for attention (elements of whine), and some are warnings to other little fuzzy animals to get the hell out of her space (pure anger). So we're able to target the punishment.

But it still feels cruel. I've no idea how much this noise hurts our dog, but for the moment it just seems to annoy her. If it really hurt I'm sure she'd whine. Also, it may be my immagination, but I can't help but think the thing gives me a headache. In the back of my head.

I've read a lot of bad reviews for the device, mostly from very impatient people who expected it to be an off switch for their dog.

We'll see.