141. All Bite, No Bark

Gap-fill exercise

Fill in all the gaps, then press "Check" to check your answers. Use the "Hint" button to get a free letter if you don't remember the word. Note that you will lose points if you ask for hints or clues!
A New York City entrepreneur is seeking investors his “No Bark” startup. With enough investment money, Cobb says, he will be able to discover melodies that, when played, will instantly quiet barking . Because dogs hear sound frequencies that humans cannot , the melodies will be unheard by humans.
“There’s huge market for this service,” Cobb declared. “There’s 30 million dogs in this country, probably 2 right here in the city. And what do dogs love to do more than anything? Bark, ’s what! And what do people hate more than ? Barking dogs, that’s what!”
Cobb says that he to India to study how snake charmers control deadly cobra with music. He figured that if could use music to prevent a deadly cobra striking out at humans, he could use the music to prevent a dog from barking. So learned how to play the pungi, the snake ’s flute. And he learned many of the same that the snake charmers played.
He returned to York, where he practiced the tunes on his . At first, his dog simply barked along with music. After hours of modifying tunes, Cobb discovered that actually caused his dog to stop barking.
was jubilant. He had discovered a melody that shut dogs up. He would be rich beyond wildest dreams! Unfortunately, the melody worked on his , but not on his neighbor’s dog. Nor on other dogs in the neighborhood.
Cobb figures that will help him find the right melodies at right frequencies to shut up any dog on . “My dream, of course,” he said, “is to one melody that will shut up a whole of barking dogs. That might rank right up with the discovery of penicillin!”
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