Quote Originally Posted by IRescue452 View Post
The one thing I hate about bark collars altogether is they taught my dog Autumn to growl when she greets people. This could eventually lead to a bad situation if somebody assumes she is aggressive (which she is not). I got her when I still lived with my parents and my stepdad insisted on a bark collar. She learned quickly that it won't pick up a low growl and so she was conditioned that a bark is not ok but a growl is. Even though its been years without the collar, she still has more tendency to growl instead of bark. What have you tried to redirect their attention? Will a bone get their full attention? Can you try a blind of some sort over their runs?
They are easily re-directed when I tell them to be quiet (unless fence-fighting, because they can't hear me through all of the barking; Then I actually have to go all the way down into the yard and physically remove them from the situation), but I can't get up from my seat every minute to go to the window and tell them to be quiet, or take the five minutes to go downstairs and outside and pull them all away from the loose dogs. After just a couple of barks, and after me yelling, the baby is awake, etc, and in my current condition I have enough trouble going upstairs, let alone running out into the yard all of the time. I sound like such a mean owner when I have to yell out the window constantly, and my business sign is right beside their yard, so it makes me look really bad as a dog groomer to be yelling at the dogs all the time to shutup.
My dogs don't bark when greeting people so growling won't become an issue; They only bark at people who walk by the yard. If they are inside the house, they don't bark when people come over (unless we're not home), and they don't bark at people out on walks or in public; They are very friendly outgoing dogs. The neighbor dogs have only taught them to be bark at passerbys.
The dog run is in the very back where they can't see people or anything that walks by (unless someone is out back which isn't as often); That is why I mentioned that now they have to spend most of the time in their run if they go out, but it is very small, and not fair to keep them in it so often, and like I said, Visa will still bark at vehicles that pull into the driveway, and there is no way to cover the fence in the yard.

I've decided to get a Tri-tronics collar because I keep hearing really good reviews. I haven't heard a single bad one yet. It's supposed to be the best rated collar on the market, and not even very expensive. I paid $300 for one that didn't work at all, and the Tri-tronics is only $100.