Anti-bark collars

[sanford8916]

I thought they sounded like a good idea for a dog that barks alot but not anymore. I have a friend and her dog would bark at everyone that walked by their house, so she put a barking collar on him. Well he barked, it shocked him, which made him yelp, then it shocked him again, yelp, shock, you get it, so she tried to get the collar off him and he bite her hard enough that she had to get stitches and he only bite her because he didn't know what the heck was happening( he was scared and thought she was hurting him) He is a good dog and has never showed any signs that he might bite, this was not his fault. She returned the collar and was very upset with herself for putting her dog through that! I think I would talk to a dog trainer to see what they recommend if your dog barks alot!

[Glacier]

I'd recommend a citronella collar over the shock type ones. I've seen some dogs get very messed up from the shock ones. The citronella ones give out a spray of citronella or lemon scent every time the dog barks. Dogs generally don't like citrus smells so they will stop barking to avoid it.

I bought Nytron a muzzle called a Husher yesterday. It's a thick elastic, so he can pant and drink with it on. The theory is that the elastic makes it too much work to bark. Too early to say if it will work, but it looks promising.

Of course, as with any training device, you have to be there to make sure it's working. I wouldn't leave any type of collar(besides a normal one) or muzzle on an unsupervised dog.

[Pawsitive Thinking]

Thanks for the replies - may just buy Archie or my husband earplugs!!!

[GreyhoundGirl]

A friend of mine has one for her lab X grey. It works quite well, but the dog is too smart for it. The dog trained itself.

The collar only zaps the 3rd time. Now the dog knows to bark twice, then stop for 3 secs, then bark twice again. And people say dogs can't count !

[Argranade]

Hahahaha what a smart dog.

[Kosy]

I have a remote citronella collar. It's great.

[catnapper]

The problem with bark collars is that it stops the problem but doesn't get to the bottom of the issue. So if the dog is barking to say hello, he might opt for alternative (less attractive) ways of saying hello like juming up. OR he might associate the shock with the person he's saying hello to and become human agressive. If he's barking from hyperness (is that a word?) then he'll take out his energy (again in less attractive) ways.... digging, scratching, jumping, chewing. You get the picture.

The citronilla collars work well, until you get a smart dog that figures out he can turn his head (naughty naughty!) The ultra sonic sound collars can actually turn certain breeds deaf because they rupture the eardrum. Some breeds just have such sensitive hearing that the pulse from the collar deafens them.

To truly solve barking issues, you need to discover why a dog barks. People often say they bark all the time. But, if you stopped and kept a log of when they barked and what was happening, you'd see a pattern develop. One bark that says "yippie, visitors!" andother bark that say "I'm bored, give me attention" and another that says "Stay away from my house you evil squirrel!" Once you kow which bark it is, then you can work on training him to stop. Each type of bark has a different way to stop it. Visitors may not pet the dog until he's quiet. The command "leave it" works well for those evil squirrels.... and so on until you've solved barking.

Some breeds are known barkers -- were bred for their barking abilities so you'll never completely rid them of barking. Nicki used to be great about inappropraite barking, but now she's old and I swear she pretends to not hear our commands She's been driving us nuts with barking lately so I understand how frustrating this is!