Patent ID: 7198009

Claim:
A method of operating an electronic apparatus to control vocalizing by a dog, the electronic apparatus including i. a housing supported against the animal's skin by a strap, ii. first and second stimulus electrodes connected to a surface of the housing, iii. a sensor supported by the housing for producing signals in response to vocalizing by the dog, iv. control circuitry, including a controller, in the housing having an input coupled to an output of the sensor, the control circuitry including output terminals coupled to produce aversive stimulus signals between the first and second stimulus electrodes in response to vocalizing by the dog; the method comprising: (a) electronically converting vocalizing sounds from the dog into a sequence of corresponding signals representing the frequencies of the vocalizing sounds, and providing the sequence of signals as an input to the controller; (b) operating the controller to determine the frequencies of the sequence of signals during a predetermined interval of time; (c) operating the controller to determine if each measured frequency lies within any of a plurality of predetermined frequency sub-ranges and if so, then incrementing cumulative totals of the frequencies which lie in the sub-ranges, respectively, to provide a plurality of cumulative totals that represent a frequency spectrum of the vocalizing sounds; (d) determining whether the barking sounds constitute a valid bark by operating the controller to compare the frequency spectrum to a predetermined valid bark frequency spectrum; and (e) operating the microcontroller to cause the control circuitry to cause appropriate aversive stimulus signals to be produced between the first and second stimulus electrodes if the determination of step (d) determines that the vocalizing sounds constitute a valid bark.