We have friends here on the island that have a dog that doesn't bark. Doesn't that sound lovely? Well, the dog actually does bark, but when he does he makes this weird, laryngitis-sounding squeaks. At best, he sounds hoarse, but mostly he just sounds ridiculous. As a former show dog (and when he was owned by someone else), they had his vocal chords nipped. Isn't that horrible? I think it's horrible. I would never do that to one of my dogs. Nope. No sirree. It's just not right.
Or so I thought.
But then The Gidge, over the last couple of years, has developed this incredibly annoying, jump-out-of-your-skin, barking tirade habit and the more we had to endure it, the more we started wondering "
just how much do you think that vocal chord surgery would cost?".
You see, she may only be 10-lbs of Silky Terrier, but in her mind, she's 1000-lbs of Grizzley Bear. To say she's territorial would be an understatement. She's got hair-trigger nerves, and, well, it's been a bloody bark-fest around these parts for way too long.
Some of the things that could set her off?
- A ballcap resting on a doorknob
- Inconsiderate placement of the tv remote control ("inconsiderate" is anywhere within her sight line)
- Me, dancing in the kitchen
- Snickers, whenever he moves too fast for her liking
- Frieda
- The wind whistling through the trees (dare I mention that here on the sandbar, it's always windy?)
- Perhaps the worst of all though is anytime anyone knocks on, or rings our door. That unleashes a tirade that only stops once she's hunted down the culprit and heaven forbid we lock her in the kitchen while we attend to the person at the door. That will set the Gidge into a fury the likes of which you'll hopefully never know.
Oh, we consulted with our vet who in turn consulted with the animal behaviorist on staff at the Atlantic Veterinary College. We thought it was anxiety and perhaps it is...but the behaviorist diagnosed it as adult-onset crankiness.
What?
"It's the breed" said she.
"The breed?" said I.
"Yes. This breed of dog is known to be exceptionally territorial and the older they get, the more this comes out in their personality and really, there's not much you can do about it, short of medication."
I just couldn't see myself shelling out $$ every month for valium for the dog when I don't have my own prescription, so we muddled on, hoping and praying that the Gidge would perhaps grow out of this phase. I mean, she grew into it? Maybe she'd grow out of it?
It just got worse. The barking, while not exactly non-stop, sure felt that way. You can see the attraction of the vocal chord surgery, now, can't you?
Well, before we went down that road, I went to my local pet store in search of some sort of training device that might help us with this problem and lo and behold...my local pet store guy had a couple of solutions. One involved a very expensive sonar/vibrator/I don't know what else contraption, but that would only work if she were an outside dog. And as thrilling as the prospect of putting Gidget outside for the rest of her life was, we remembered the birds of prey (not to mention the local coyotes & foxes) and decided, no, she's best suited for the indoors. That took that device off the table.
Which left us with this:
It's a little battery-operated device that when activated by the sound of barking emits a little citronella infused spray of air, right into her face and guess what? IT SHUTS HER UP!
Really, it's quite funny - she's surprised every time it happens and she looks at me with a "
WTF just happened?" expression. But it does the trick. It breaks her fixation on whatever has her attention and she stops barking. Silent Gidge.
I put it on her every night, about a half hour before Buzz comes home (because, yes, as soon as she hears his car in the driveway she starts with the announcements "he's home, he's home, he's HOME") and while she may bark once, she does not bark incessantly. It is a thing of beauty. Silent Gidge.
We've been using this little contraption every night since Friday. Which means we've now had six nights of uninterrupted sleep. Six nights of silence, courtesy of Silent Gidge.
You have no idea how this has improved the quality of our life.
