Champ1
1 Emily’s best boy
Abstract
Emily is the entire world. We are a pack of two and if anything happens to her…well, nothing’s going to happen to her because of the bark method. Ever since she broke me out of prison four years ago, Emily has been living in an extremely dangerous area filled with mail men, strange men, strange dogs, squirrels, cars, and on some days, garbage trucks. I knew I had to think of something to keep her safe, so I have developed a nearly perfect method for scaring away all dangers called the bark method. The process additionally includes securing our neighborhood through regular patrols with hormone distribution via urine which limited some of the dangers. Regardless, we encounter upwards of 100’s of threats a day which must be deterred using the bark method which will be established in this paper. After analyzing millions of security encounters to protect Emily, I have determined that it has a 100% success rate, except for Matt who won’t leave. Despite my warnings Emily keeps letting him in!
Keywords: Home Security, Bark method, Protecting Emily, Mailmen, Garbage Trucks, Strangers, Threat Assessment, Deterrence, Territorial Patrols, Pattern of Life, Receiver Operating Curve, Cost Matrix, Defense Tech
1. Introduction
I was a stray and then I was a prisoner at a high security facility where they only let us out for two walks a day. We were kept twelve dogs to a cell with only one toy to share between us all [1]. Thankfully Emily came and busted me out four years ago and we’ve been a solid pack ever since. Matt might be joining the pack but I’m not sure yet!
There were a few times where she disappeared for two weeks at a time [2]. I had to stay at her dad’s place which sucks, I can’t even sit on the couch there. Every time she left, all her clothes would end up in a pile of some red wheely fabric box, so I think that had something to do with it. She would always come back smelling really weird! So last summer when I saw the wheely fabric box out, I destroyed it, and Emily was safe, and we’ve been inseparable ever since [3]! She was crying so much probably from being scared of the box taking her again.
In our pack, Emily takes care of the food so I’m in charge of the security. That’s probably because I can win any fight there is. There are many dangers in our neighborhood and a lot of times, I can only hear them! It’s important to be able to determine if a sound is a normal car, or bird which is usually harmless, or if there are people outside or worse a big truck [4]! The big trucks make a lot of noise and will sometimes try and get through a hole in the door. My job is to keep all of these threats outside and away from Emily. As you can see from Figure 1, I’m good at my job. It’s even tougher on our territorial patrols which have a lot of strange sounds, but on those I can smell threats to see if they’re friendly [5].
2. Methodology
The Bark method is a fool proof method of deterring territorial threats away from Emily; however, it is only successful when combined with territorial patrols and effective threat assessments.
2.1 Bark Method
The Bark method doesn’t stand for anything. It’s just barking. Sometimes I’ll growl. I don’t know how no one else has thought of this except for me [6]. As you can see in the diagram below, after a threat is identified, begin barking until the threat goes away. The threat always goes away, except for Matt. He’s still here and I can’t bark that long.
Once the threat is gone, it’s best to comfort Emily because many times she is hysterical when she is in danger. She’s always yelling at me and panicking especially if I have to bark really loud to secure the home in the middle of the night [7]. This happens the most whenever she lets a strange man into the house. Usually, I can bark at them until they go away but sometimes, the strange man and Emily are in their bedroom with the door closed if he gets past me about half the time [8]. I can still hear them there, but I can keep barking until the man goes away. They always go away because it is a perfect method. Good thing I’m always there to protect and comfort her.
2.2 Territorial Patrols
Many times, through the day I will patrol our territory as a pack. Usually, we will walk around many nearby houses, trees, and fields. This patrol accomplishes three things; extended threat assessment, territorial urine marking, and it gets Emily out of the house. She’s sad any time she’s inside for too long [9]. It’s important to urinate on every tree over the period of about a week so that strangers, dogs and other threats know that you’re there [10]. When on patrol it is important to be more alert than at home because there are many more strange dogs and men who I don’t know or trust. Emily is always being approached by strange men, so I have to do a lot of barking on our pack’s daily patrols.
2.3 Threat Assessment
It is impossible to begin the Bark method until a threat has been detected. It’s important to detect real threats and not fake threats because if you start barking at a bird even though it is not a threat, Emily might become scared which is not worth it. There are also always birds. When I’m home, it is much easier to know if a noise is from something dangerous or not. As shown in figure 3, the Receiver Operating Curve (ROC) for a home threat assessment is much better than when out on a territorial patrol. This is because at home a pattern of life has been established [11]. For instance, I know exactly 10 seconds before Emily gets home because it is always around the same time every day and I can hear her jingling of keys as she walks up to our door. This gives me plenty of time to greet her at the door, but I know she is not a threat.
While on territorial patrols the pattern of life has not been established, and strange cars and people show up I have never seen before. Sometimes it is suddenly. Bikers, runners, and strange men on scooters will often come out of nowhere [12]. Because of this, it’s important to adjust my detection threshold to quickly react to all these dangers before it’s too late and I lose Emily.
As you can see from the cost matrix below, there is so much larger of a cost to not detecting a true threat than a false positive that I have to be really really really sure. This is why my detection threshold is extremely low and that I bark at nearly all strangers except for children under the age of 11. If I make a mistake, Emily dies! At the end of the day, barks are unlimited but there’s only one Emily.
| Detect Threat | No Threat Detected | |
| True Threat | Cost = 0 | Cost = Emily Dies |
| No True Threat | Cost = Scaring Emily | Cost = 0 |
3. Data Collection
Over the last four years I have kept a careful tabulation of the encounters in the front yard and on our neighborhood patrols. Sometimes it is impossible to determine if a threat was ever real so there is unfortunately no truth data [13]. For analysis I have estimated whether the threat is a strange man, a strange woman, a dog, a large trucks, Garbage Trucks, a bicycle, a scooter, or other/unknown. The encounter is determined a success if they go away after I threaten them with the Bark Method. Spoiler alert, they always go away.
4. Results
As you can see in the table below, of all the threats that have approached our home or Emily on a walk, every single one went away when I started barking. Except for Matt which will be discussed later. It’s basically a 99.9999% success rate which might as well be 100% if it weren’t for Matt who keeps coming back to spend time with Emily despite all my barking.
| Threat Type | Encounters | Successes |
| Strange Men | 23,183 | 23,182 |
| Strange Women | 18,509 | 18,509 |
| Dogs | 32,778 | 32,778 |
| Large Trucks | 10,841 | 10,841 |
| Garbage Trucks | 8,116 | 8,116 |
| Bicycles | 26,934 | 26,934 |
| Scooters | 14,502 | 14,502 |
| Other | 6,733 | 6,733 |
| Unknown | 182,922 | 182,922 |
Not one single large truck even ended up in the yard! However, there was large variation in the length of barking required to scare away all of the threats. For some of the threat encounters, the time to deter was notated. As shown in figure 4 below, there is large variation between some categories. Large Trucks to include garbage trucks take the longest to scare away. This makes sense because they are really big and probably really powerful. Bikes and scooters in blue got scared away the fastest. Dogs and strangers were more variable; I can’t quite make out which lines those are but some scared away fast and some I had to bark at for a while to scare them away.
5. Analysis and Discussion
Given the nearly one to one correlation between threats approaching the house and the successful deterrence using the bark method, there is not much analysis required to determine whether barking at things keeps our home and territory safe. There are a few things to discuss regarding the implementation of the methodology and I have to address the one exception.
5.1 Emily Positive Reinforcement
Regardless of the success rate of the bark method, Emily continues to become distressed every time there is a threat and start loudly barking to secure the area. Regardless of my success rate, she still seems to be extremely distressed by the constant danger encroaching on our pack’s territory. I need to determine a way to show her that she is safe with me before, during, and after implementing the bark method. I don’t want to disrupt whatever she is doing to provide us with food. I’m not sure how she does it, but it is plentiful.
5.2 Matt
I don’t know what to think of Matt slipping past our pack’s defenses. He might be fine because so far Emily seems to be fine despite how much he’s hanging around our territory uninvited. The first few times he showed up I thought I nearly scared him away, but Emily kept pulling me back by my collar. It’s been a few months now and he WILL NOT go away! So, I’ve given up barking at him even though he stole my spot on the couch and smells wrong. He’s not in the pack. I don’t think we’ve established a method for accepting new people to the pack. It would increase the pack size by 50% but I don’t know if we have enough food. He doesn’t seem to provide any food except once when he brought bacon, so he doesn’t have a role in the pack either. He hasn’t tried to eat my food yet, but I won’t let him. Ever since Matt began walking with us on our territorial patrols, Emily has been approached from less strange men so that is a good thing. One strange man who smells wrong does not mean that the Bark method does not work because Emily is still safe.
6. Conclusion
Despite the success threats still approach our territory and house every day. Eventually, they will all leave us alone. I must be really good at my job of protecting the pack because every single time I bark at something dangerous approaching our territory they always go away. I’ll have to continue barking at any suspicious sound or thing that walks by otherwise Emily will die.
References
- Champ 2021 On the Humanitarian Conditions of the Chramberton County Animal Shelter
- Champ 2023 The Curious Case of a Missing Emily: A True Unsolved Mystery of Emily’s Occasional Disappearance
- Champ 2024 The Final Solution to the Wheely Box Problem: How I DESTROYED the Box taking Emily Away!
- Champ 2022 “Garbage Day” The Most Dangerous Attack on our Territory every Friday between 10 and 12
- Champ 2024 Threat Assessment by Odor: A Fool Proof Differentiator of Outside Dangers
- Champ 2025 A Meta Analysis of Other Less Scary Dogs in my Neighborhood that Aren’t as Smart as I am
- Champ 2022 Frightened for her Life: Emily’s Insecurity in the Face of Constant Danger Despite my Barking
- Champ 2023 On the Effectiveness of Protecting Emily from Strange Men in her Bedroom
- Champ 2021 Novel Methods for Cheering Up Emily when she’s in her Couch Mood
- Champ 2022 Urination Defense: Multi-Sensory Deterrence Methods for Territorial Intruders
- Champ 2023 The Importance of Noise Patterns of Life: How I know EXACTLY when Emily gets Home
- Champ 2022 WHERE ARE ALL THESE SCOOTERS, RUNNERS, AND BIKERS, COMING FROM AND HOW CAN I STOP THEM BEFORE GETTING TO EMILY!!
- Champ 2025 The Insufficiency of Truth Data and How I can’t see what I’m barking at when the Curtain’s Closed!
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