How to Survive Movie Night with a TV-Reactive Dog
If you have a TV-reactive dog, you know the drill. You sit down and relax with your pup when, all of a sudden, an animal appears or a doorbell dings on screen, causing your TV-reactive dog to bark, charge at the TV, howl, yip, or yap until well after the culprit has left the screen.
I know exactly how exhausting and frustrating this can be because my dog, Gus, does it ALL the time. He’s 12 now and watches with more unbridled enthusiasm than ever before.
For a long time, my solution for Gus was to watch only movies with known triggers, so I could skip them altogether. I knew the plot. I didn’t mind skipping something if it meant keeping Gus happily watching along without the big reaction. If we were watching a movie we had never seen before? Get ready for a rollercoaster of a ride.
For unknown titles, I would watch the entire movie with a death grip on the remote, anxiously hovering my thumb over the mute or fast-forward buttons, just in case a horse galloped across the screen or a doorbell rang in the background.
TV with commercials is the worst for dog triggers. Why is there always an animal in a commercial? No more animals in commercials, I say.
I built BarkSkip to give other reactive, TV-watching dog owners their movie nights back.
BarkSkip is a free Chrome extension for your laptop. You tell BarkSkip that your dog’s specific triggers are whether it’s one or all of them: Animals, Loud Noises, Babies/Kids, Robots, Supernatural, Violence, Scary Things, and Weird Things. When you play a supported title on Netflix, BarkSkip looks ahead, flashes a quick warning on the screen, and seamlessly skips right past the trigger. You’re also able to skip the skip if you’d like.
I don't use live AI that might miss a bark. Every trigger in our catalog is meticulously hand-mapped by a human to ensure your dog stays calm.
BarkSkip isn't a replacement for training, but it is a way to give your dog and your nervous system a break for a couple of hours.
Want to test it out? You can install BarkSkip for free and test it on 5 flagship movies to see if it helps your dog. No credit card required, and no monthly subscriptions.
