THE SAGA OF YAP
     BY DAVE SMALL 
 
 Courtesy of Current Notes(mid 1980's)

I want to make this clear at the very beginning of this article
that I'm a dog lover. Grew up with three German Shepards. I get along
with dogs just fine. Except for the one next door.

The dog next door, Yap (as we call him), has a problem: he barks
constantly.
 
Beginning at 5:30 in the morning, he barks at the paperboy.
At 6:30, at the cars driving by.  At 8, at the school kids walking by.
Throughout the, day,at planes overhead. He barks at anything. 
By mid-afternoon, he's hoarse, but ready for the kids coming home,
cars returning from work, and so on.

Generally, he stands about fifteen feet away from my bedroom 
window, right at the fence corner, and opens up. Yap, yap, yap.

I can't tell you how many times I've been woken up by this
little charmer. My kids (3 and 4 years old) used to come running 
downstairs to announce that they were scared of the dog.
So, I began to plan.
 
Evil plott filtered through my mind, which I won't mention, to keep
from further tarnishing my good name. You can imagine what I
thought of doing, those mornings I'd stayed up until 2 a.m. working 
on the Magic Sac, when Yap would start in at 5:30.

One day, as I stood in the shower listening to Yap (It's a 
particularly penetrating bark that can be heard while one is in the
shower), I had this idea on how to-stop him from barking. I did it,
it worked, and I thought I'd tell you about it. I can't be the only
person with a barking dog problem.

Fittingly, I cured Yap with an ATARI computer. Here were my components: 

1) one Atari 800 computer which had (in truth) mostly been gathering
dust, with Basic cartridge. No disk even needed.

2) one 5-pin DIN connector, from Radio Shack.

3)one Kenwood KR-4070 40-watt amplifier, from my college days,
which had also been gathering dust.

4) one Radio Shack piezoelectric tweeter 40-watt about $15.

5) one RCA phono plug and cable (cut one end off), from Radio Shack. $2.


Wire the DIN connector with pin 2 (the big one) to the RCA cable's
ground and with pin 3, the AUDIO OUTPUT, to the cables's center (*hot*).

Connect the Atari to the PHONO IN plug on the amplifier, and the
piezo tweeter' as near to Yap as possible, in this case, hidden by a
bush outside the fence. Run a long speaker wire as necessary.

Next time Yap begins to bark, ATARI: SOUND 0,1,10,15.
This sets the channel 0 to a very high frequency--so high that people can't
hear it at maximum volume.

Turn the amplifier to about "E3", or until clipping occurs
(Clipping is where you're pushing your amplifier too hard, and it
I starts putting out DC.  DC fries speakers. If you don't have an
oscilliscope to detect it, the only way to prevent clipping is not to
turn up your amp too loudly).

You won't be able to hear the sound being made because it's too
high a frequency; it does make your teeth itch, however. (If you'd like
to hear what the dog hears, drop the frequency a bit, something like:
SOUND 0,10,10,15. Piercing, isn't it?).

The dog on the other hand, has no problem hearing this frequency
(which is how dog whistles work), and at this point, ceases barking,
wonders what on earth is going on, and beats a retreat back inside his
house. At this point, shut off the amp.

After three weeks or so, we had Yap well trained. Not a peep 
out of him because every time he barked, he'd get 40-watts of high
frequency in the ear. I used to get up at 5 A.M., drink coffee, and
await the paperboy, my finger on the volume control. I must confess
to evilly grinning too, all those mornings he woke me up. These
days, he doesn't require much training. Perhaps once a week we 
have to remind him not to bark.  He's a quiet dog now.

Best of all, our neighbors never heard a thing. All this
happened at a frequency far too high for them to hear. That's the
beauty to this solution.

Well, that's the story of how I cured Yap, using an ATARI
computer as a frequency generator.  If you have a similar problem, you
probably have most of the components on-hand to, solve it;
twenty bucks worth of electrical parts is well worth a little peace
and quiet.  Remember, if you do this, the object isn't to-hurt the
dog, it's to make him a bit uncomfortable while he's doing what 
you want to train him out of. You have to remember to turn the sound
off when he stops barking.

When I bought the ATARI 800, back in 1981, I was told it was a
"home computer". Since that time, there's been a lot of debate as to 
whether or not a "home computer" is actually useful.  I don't debate
the point anymore, mine is worth its weight in gold.

I get to sleep in these days.