BarkWise — Peace of mind when your dog is home alone

The part nobody posts about

You already know the feeling.

Most dog owners don't find out about the barking from their dog. They find out from someone else.

📝

The note on the door

You get home to a folded piece of paper wedged in the frame. It's polite. It's still about your dog barking all afternoon.

— apartment 4B, again

📋

The lease renewal call

Your landlord mentions "a couple of noise complaints" right before asking if you're planning to renew. Casually. Pointedly.

— property management, Tuesday

🔔

The 2pm guilt-check

You open the old baby-monitor app for the fifth time today, just to watch your dog pace for ninety seconds before your next meeting starts.

— every day, roughly

It's not just your dog

Separation anxiety is one of the most common behavior issues in dogs.

14–28%

of dogs show separation-related behavior when researchers apply consistent clinical criteria — with some estimates running as high as 40% among dogs seen by behaviorists.

Institute for Environmental Research & Education · NIH PMC review, 2022

33%

of owners believe their dog has separation anxiety — even higher than clinical estimates, meaning most people dealing with this feel like they're the only ones.

Kinship pandemic separation-anxiety study, 2021

↓ cortisol

Left alone, every dog's stress hormone (salivary cortisol) rises somewhat — that's normal. Dogs who heard a recording of their owner's voice during that time had a smaller spike than dogs left in silence: the voice measurably softened the stress response.

Journal of Veterinary Science, 2016 — auditory & olfactory stimulation study

What actually happens

Three steps, no camera required to catch it.

BarkWise runs entirely off sound — your dog doesn't need to be on camera for the app to know something's wrong.

01 — BARK

Your dog barks at the door, the mail, or nothing at all.

The Dog Phone stays behind, screen on, listening continuously — propped on a shelf or leaning somewhere it can hear the room.

02 — DETECTED

BarkWise recognizes it in seconds.

On-device sound detection tells barking apart from the TV, the doorbell, or another dog outside.

03 — CALMED

Your voice — or a calming sound — plays automatically.

Record "it's okay, I'll be home soon" once, and BarkWise plays it back every time. You get notified either way.

BarkWise app screen showing the Dog Phone view, waiting for commands with a Simulate Bark option

Dog owners, in their own words

What changes after two weeks with BarkWise.

A few stories from people using BarkWise with their own dogs.

"Every time I left for work, Milo would howl until the neighbors complained. Now BarkWise catches it in the first ten seconds and plays the 'settle' cue I recorded myself. Three weeks in, the howling's down to almost nothing."

"I travel every other week and used to just hope for the best. Now I get a live check-in the second Rosie starts barking, and I can talk her down myself from a hotel room three states away."

"We adopted Theo mid-move and he'd never once been left alone. BarkWise's reports showed us he was anxious every day at exactly 2pm — mail truck. We changed our schedule around it. He's calm now, and we finally had the data to know why."

Built for two phones, not one

One phone stays home. One stays with you.

Set an old phone up as the listener, and use the one in your pocket to check in, respond, and see what happened.

BarkWise settings screen showing custom voice command recording

Recorded by you

Custom Calming Commands

Record your own voice once. BarkWise plays it back automatically, every time — no generic white noise.

BarkWise reports screen showing bark counts and calm-down times

Actually useful data

Bark Reports

See when your dog barks most, how fast they calm down, and what's working — not just a raw video log.

BarkWise My Phone screen with Live Video and Bark Detection toggles

Two-phone setup

Live Check-Ins

Get a "Bark detected" push notification, open My Phone, and switch on Live Video to join the feed instantly — or jump into a live session anytime you feel like checking in, no notification required. Either way, you can talk through the camera to your dog from wherever you are. Tip: point the Dog Phone's camera at wherever your dog usually hangs out.

Any old phone works

One listens, one keeps you posted

The Dog Phone can be a spare phone sitting in a drawer — no new hardware, no collar, no camera required. My Phone is just the one already in your pocket.

Available now

Get BarkWise on any phone you've already got.

Works on iPhone and Android — and the Dog Phone can even be the old one sitting in your drawer.

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

iOS 15+ and Android 8+ · barkwise.org/privacy

<5s

typical time to detect a bark

phones, that's the whole setup

24/7

listening while you're out

very good dog, calmer now