All Bite, No Bark

　　《365个英语小故事》:实用简洁的小故事，都是日常生活小故事，在学习英语的同时了解美国文化，循序渐进，轻松掌握。

　　A New York City entrepreneur is seeking investors for his No Bark startup. With enough investment money, Ty Cobb says, he will be able to discover the melodies that, when played, will instantly quiet barking dogs. Because dogs hear sound frequencies that humans cannot hear, the melodies will be unheard by humans.

　　Theres a huge market for this service, Cobb declared. Theres about 30 million dogs in this country, probably 2 million right here in the city. And what do these dogs love to do more than anything? Bark, thats what! And what do people hate more than anything? Barking dogs, thats what!

　　Cobb says that he went to India to study how snake charmers control the deadly cobra with music. He figured that if they could use music to prevent a deadly cobra from striking out at humans, he could use the same music to prevent a dog from barking. So he learned how to play the pungi, the snake charmers flute. And he learned many of the same tunes that the snake charmers played.

　　He returned to New York, where he practiced the tunes on his dog. At first, his dog simply barked along with the music. After hours of modifying tunes, Cobb discovered one that actually caused his dog to stop barking.

　　He was jubilant. He had discovered a melody that would shut dogs up. He would be rich beyond his wildest dreams! Unfortunately, the melody worked on his dog, but not on his neighbors dog. Nor on several other dogs in the neighborhood.

　　Cobb figures that computers will help him find the right melodies at the right frequencies to shut up any dog on Earth. My dream, of course, he said, is to discover one melody that will shut up a whole block of barking dogs. That might rank right up there with the discovery of penicillin!