The Frugal No Bark Solution

In an effort to get ready fot the arrival of Biscuit this past Sunday, I had to suck it up and go to Petco. I'm not a fan of big box retailers, but I needed a very specific collar and I needed it ASAP. Sometimes you have to compromise. The irony is, in the long run, I ended up returning the collar, it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Two visits to Petco in less than a week. That's a new record for me.

The variety in a store like that is enough to make my eyes fall out. Looking for an appropriate chew toy took half an hour because there were so many. Am I the only one who yearns for the old Sears catalog where there were generally three choices of any given product and they were labeled good, better and best? But I digress.

Biscuit has had his fair share of health problems arthritis from malnutrition during a growth spurt (I know it sounds ridiculous but if you had seen him limping you'd understand) to hook worms. Now that Biscuit is eating regularly and taking meds for the arthritis and hook worms, he's a much perkier guy. Last night he was so perky, he wouldn't stop barking when we crated him for the night.

Now I know there are quite a few no bark items sold and I know they're pretty pricey. Thanks to my neighbor's suggestion, I threw some change into an old empty coffee can and shook it whenever the dog barked. The result, almost instantaneous quiet. The cost, nothing the coins were foreign ones that we've saved over the years. The benefit to my mental health, priceless.