First this is not a whistle.. its an ultrasonic clicker. The buzz makes an irritating noise and there is a freq button on the right side to allow you to change which frequency it uses.
con there is no indication of what freq is selected for the human, so you put it up to your ear and cycle through them until you hear the click rate that your dog doesnt like. While it is ultrasonic, when close to your ear you can hear the clicks just like your hands feel the heat from a stove even though they are not infrared eyes.
The no-bark works, even though I was pessimistic with my german shepherd dog who does a 3 way call every night at 6 with the neighbors dogs
#1 you power it on using left hand power button and find the most irritating click frequency using the freq button on the right
now its ready
#2 you press power a second time. This puts it in auto mode and the tiny auto/power leds alternate
#3 put it somewhere where the dog cant get it but it can hear the dog, and the dog can hear it.
#4 in auto mode it listens for your dogs first 'grace' bark
#5 if the 'grace' bark is followed by a 2nd bark, it goes into auto correction mode.
The dog will soon figure out only 1 bark is allowed, then it drops to zero pretty quick.
There is also a training button which is highly effective. When your dog is chewing on the tv remote, press the correction button and the dog stops. If your dog won't go to sleep inside press the correction button and it will change its tune and calm down.
Overall the clicking is very effective and that surprised me. Its a non-harmful sound that irritates the dog to stop their action. Whenever the alert (clicking) is happening 3 leds (tiny) flash left center right center left to let you know its signalling.
battery life is excellent, which is also surprising. theres even an auto off feature
I took off one star because it is hard to tell what frequency is set.
The Havahart Ultrasonic Basic is dog training device that uses an ultrasonic frequency to provide a negative stimulus to dogs, in an attempt to correct unwanted behavior. It is a remote-shaped device with an auto feature for barking, as well as a manual button that can be activated when your dog acts up.
DESIGN
The first thing I noticed about it, is the ridiculous amount of excess packaging. The box is the size of a shoe box, while the remote is maybe the size of a small baked potato, and the only thing else it comes with is a 2 page manual. You could fit 4 of the devices in one box, and most of it is empty space, likely in an effort to consume more shelf space in stores and attract more attention. The actual device has a bit of an awkward design. It is shaped like a tube of moisturizing cream, with a somewhat slim base that gets wider, ending with a circular speaker. It's easy enough to use at home, but it doesn't fit in a pocket very well, and there's no belt clip, making it awkward to take on a walk. There is a power button on the side of the device. You press it once to turn it to auto, again to turn it to manual, and again to turn it back off. Seems easy enough, but it doesn't register your presses very well. I was constantly pressing the button, and then staring at it to wait for the light that indicates what setting it is on to flash (it comes on after about five seconds), and then trying to cycle back to the right setting when I realized it wasn't on the one I wanted. If your dog starts barking, you can't easily pick this up and use it quickly.
HOW IT WORKS
You initially train the device by waiting until your dog is tired or resting, then cycle through one of the five frequencies until you pick one your dog responds to. I have a young dog so he picked up on the first one right away. The next step is to wait until your dog initiates bad behavior, then do a manual correction by pressing the button. This will emit the saved frequency. The idea is that the frequency is annoying or unpleasant to your dog. When your dog barks or jumps, you hit the manual button which will send out the frequency. The dog then associates the unpleasant frequency with the behavior they have just committed, and will learn to stop the behavior. This is the exact same training method as saying "NO," hitting your dog on the nose, or using a shock collar, and is commonly referred to as negative reinforcement behavior. An ultrasonic noise is designed to be more humane than some of these. The auto feature on the device works only for barking, and will emit the frequency automatically whenever your dog barks.
USE
Finding the correct frequency for my dog took about fifteen minutes. The first problem is that you have to get the training device fairly close to your dog, and once he knew I was using it, he was very interested in it, so it was difficult to determine when he was registering a frequency. Additionally, he picked up on more than one frequency. I was finally satisfied I had the one he responded best to, however he was far from annoyed by it. He definitely heard it, but only registered mild curiosity with it, and I had to have the device about a foot away from his ear for him to do that. The problem with that is, even if he was annoyed by the sound, the action of trying to hold the device close enough to his ear is going to distract him from the negative behavior anyway, so this won't work. Since my dog is right at the required 6 months, and since the device advertises that it only works on 66% of dogs, I went off to find more test subjects.
I went to my dog trainer's class and tried it out on the dogs in the group as well as several friends' dogs. My trainer took one look at the device and told me it was never going to work, but I tried it out anyway. Out of fourteen dogs, only two appeared to be genuinely affected with the sound, and even those two did not seem to exhibit annoyance with it, but rather curiosity. If the sound isn't unpleasant to them, it's not going to be effective for me. After two days, the only one annoyed was me at having to spend so much time programming the device to find the right frequency for each dog.
I will say that the auto method did seem to pick up on the barking very well, and it worked to silence the barking, but not because the dogs were annoyed, but because they were distracted. One dog even appeared to bark more. I will continue to use it on more dogs and see if possibly my sample size was just too small (although that would be a big coincidence), and update this review if I find it to be any more effective.
CONCLUSION
I have studied both positive and negative reinforcement. I am a fan of the former, but find the latter to be more effective in most dogs. With Havahart advertising that the product only works on 2/3 dogs, you are taking a gamble on whether you will have any luck with it on your own dog. Even if it does register with the dog, I find that it's not enough of a negative reinforcement to eliminate the bad behavior. For training to work, you have to have a strong enough deterrent to eliminate the behavior, and it must be consistent. The Havahart lacks both. Unless you are trying to correct a behavior that you can predict 100% of the time, it won't work because you can't activate it fast enough. If your dog has a problem with jumping and you don't have the Havahart on and ready to go at every jump, he will learn that he can get away with jumping some of the time. I would advise anyone considering any type of ultrasonic training aid, to borrow one or find out if it works first before committing to it. If you can afford to spend a little more, I would recommend going with a bark collar or shock collar instead. Although some may think these are inhumane, I have used them on myself, and as long as you learn the appropriate way to train with them, and get one that has a highly adjustable level (like a Dogtra IQ Yard Training Collar), they will not hurt your dog at all and can be much more humane in the long run when your dog quickly sheds the negative behavior.
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The Havahart Ultrasonic Basic Trainer is designed to emit a loud ultrasonic sound that is audible to your dog but not humans. The idea is that you can use the ultrasonic sound as a training device to deter or stop your dog from engaging in unwanted behavior. One of my three dogs was not fazed at all by the ultrasonic sound. The other two dogs heard the sound although it did not stop them from any illicit behavior. At most the noise may have been a slight nuisance to them but not enough to stop unwanted behavior. The trainer does come with 5 different sounds but this did not seem to make a difference.
I was not impressed with this unit at all and believe that there are much more effective training tools and methods available. Also, keep in mind that if you have multiple dogs and only one dog is misbehaving then all dogs may respond to the ultrasonic sound although it may not be intended for all of the dogs. If one dog is engaging in unwanted behavior but the other two are not then the two dogs who are behaving will be negatively impacted by the sound which can potentially lead to behavior problems if the dogs are being "reprimanded" for good behavior.
I do not recommend the Havahart Ultrasonic Basic Trainer.
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It says right on the box some dogs will not respond to ultrasound. Mine didn't. I'm pretty sure if you bought it from Amazon it can be returned for a full refund. Still, I would make sure you know what the return policy is from wherever you buy this from. Many sellers, even Amazon, state shipping charges may not be refunded unless it is broken or defective. In this case, the unit is not either; it just doesn't work on my dog (pembroke welsh corgi). I would hope they make an exception based on the fact the product admits it may not work. Good luck.
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tried all levels of sound, and dog did not respond to any of the different levels of sound. would not recommend.
This collar works great and looks great. It serves the designated purpose and has helped keep my German Shorthair from slipping her collar so far!
