# Barks at some beeps but not other beeps



## KBLover (Sep 9, 2008)

Okay, I taught Wally to bark at the kitchen timer and the tea kettle (not a beep). He extended that to the coffer maker beep for whatever reason (on his own). He also barks at the smoke detector (another thing he picked up on his own, never knew he would until it went off one day because of what I was cooking in the oven (soy sauce, made a lot of smoke). 

He won't, however, bark at the microwave beeps, and it's iffy if he barks at the oven beeps. He will, however, bark at the toaster oven's "ding" and he took to barking at the doorbell nicely (doesn't even sound like a beep).

What is his issue with the microwave and the oven? I've been trying it the same way as I got the other barking, but it's slower going. 

I thought maybe it was a high pitched sound thing, but he doesn't bark at the high-pitched ring tones on my phone or high-pitched beep-like sounds I made on the computer (but he will bark/tilt head at dog sounds on from the computer speakers) and will come from another room to bark at Dora's voice.

Any ideas on what's up?


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

My husbands hearing is closer to a dog's than a human's (seriously, the doctor thought the machine was broken) and he hears things differently than I do. Noises bother him that I don't really notice, particularly "beeps". It's not painful, but bothersome. We have a microwave that dings and I use my iPod timer, not the oven timer. 

What I'm trying to say is, this could be something to do with how Wally hears physically.


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## KBLover (Sep 9, 2008)

Amaryllis said:


> My husbands hearing is closer to a dog's than a human's (seriously, the doctor thought the machine was broken) and he hears things differently than I do. Noises bother him that I don't really notice, particularly "beeps". It's not painful, but bothersome. We have a microwave that dings and I use my iPod timer, not the oven timer.
> 
> What I'm trying to say is, this could be something to do with how Wally hears physically.


Very interesting.

If I think about it that light, the tea kettle whistle tends to be the highest pitch. The coffee maker also has a higher pitched beep. It's higher pitched (to my ears anyway, I need to borrow your husband's ears LOL), than the kitchen timer and probably the tea kettle. I wonder if there's some higher frequency in the door bell that he's picking up on...

Hmm...I wonder if the duration of the sound matters. The coffee maker has longer beeps, the timer is shorter, but still longer than oven and microwave beeps. The tea kettle has the longest duration (it's constant until off the heat). 

Geez, I'm going to be listening to these sounds now, trying to find differences LOL

I need to get a dog whistle (always wanted to do those whistle cues like on retriever trials anyway). I tried those "frequency hearing tests" on youtube, trying to see if Wally "snaps" to a sound (i.e. suddenly 'looks at the sound' or his ears react). Oddly enough, a really low pitched sound got his attention (maybe he felt the vibrations, like I can if the bass is too high and it vibrates the floor...maybe he felt it in the air), but the higher pitched sounds don't do much. A whistle might be "purer", no worries about transition with computer speakers and what not. 

Also makes me wonder about Dora's voice LOL. I know her voice is (annoyingly) high pitched, but come on!


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## hanksimon (Mar 18, 2009)

Note: Typical human hearing goes up to 20 KHz, the number isn't important. What's important is that most speakers, on TVs, computers, telephones, etc. are optimized to 20 KHz ... so they may not register higher pitches that are outside of our range, but that dogs can hear. Just sayin' ....


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## KBLover (Sep 9, 2008)

Yeah, I ordered a whistle - don't know if it's a good one, etc, but it was $24 and got it for $9 so...figured why not? 

What's $10 for maybe another way to torment...teach Wally something new


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