Talk:Dog whistle

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[edit] Frequency range

Isn't 5800 Hz to 12400 Hz well within the range of human hearing? I did a google search and a lot of sites have these same numbers so I'm not sure that this is inaccurate. Can anyone explain? I've read that a dog's hearing range extends up to 45 kHz, so I would guess an ultrasonic dog whistle would have a frequency of somewhere between 20kHz and 45kHz.

Interesting question. The dog article quotes these numbers for hearing (which numbers vary depending on my source; I'm going to re-edit that section of the article)): dogs hear in the "70-100,000 Hz frequency range (compared to 16-20,000 Hz for humans." I found one book (The Dog, David Alderton) that says that dogs & humans hear down to about 20 Hz and that dog whistles around 30Hz are "virtually inaudible to the human ear"; another book (The New Dog Handbook, Hans-J. Ullman), says dogs hear 70Hz to 100Hz and that they can hear "soundless" dog whistles "in the supersonic range of about 30,000 Hz." So... either someone's confused about 30 Hz vs 30KHz, or else there are whistles in both ranges?! More research needed somewhere but I don't know where. Elf | Talk 14:31, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
30Hz is definately wrong - that would be a really deep bass boom. Podkayne 02:07, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I just added a link to my article on specific dog training issues regarding the dog whistle. My website is young but I hope you will find my article to bring a few new things to the dog whistle topic. Thanks - Michael

I agree, this makes no sense at all. Dog whistles must operate at a higher frequency than humans can hear (over 20,000 Hz) or WE WOULD HEAR THE WHISTLE. So at what frequency do "silent" dog whistles operate? It's defintely not 5800 Hz to 12,400 Hz, that's for sure! -- Tom

BTW, I have a "dog whistle" (advertised as such) that I can hear perfectly clearly no matter what range I adjust it to. There might be "silent" dog whistles but so far I haven't found one in any store. Elf | Talk 02:53, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
I have a dog squeak toy called "no noyz" and it is absolutely totally inaudible to me but my dog can hear it plain as day. It's quite bizarre. It must be operating well above 20KHz. Eli_lilly
I just checked the manufacturer's web page and it says the toy outputs sound between 25,000Hz to 35,000Hz. Again, it's not a dog whistle but an silent dog whistle clearly isn't operating at the ranges stated in the article here. Eli_lilly
Silent or not, I'm sure there is always someone who can come up with yet another whistle with a different frequency range and a fancy brand name, but the main point is that a significant amount of noise is emitted in the ultrasonic range. If the whistle is audible to the human ear it's only some frequency components. The article as it was was one big contradiction. I adjusted the frequencies to match the german article. --Dschwen 17:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Elf | Talk 18:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)