Anyone have advice on anti-barking collars?

[Joyce]

We have a high energy 9-year-old terrier mix. He's a great dog, but we are about fed up with his barking. We are considering an anti-bark collar for him.

The catalog I am looking at has two options that we are considering:

1) a citronella spray collar. This seems very humane. It sprays a burst of citronella when the wearer barks. I am leaning towards this option but I have concerns. Does this really work? Will it work on a well-meaning but rather stubborn terrier?

2) a rather sophisticated collar that uses "static correction". I assume that is an electrical jolt. The static correction collar has several levels of static correction and will shut itself off if the wearer insists that whatever he is barking at is bark-worthy. It shuts itself off if 15 or more barks happen in a 50 second period.

If you have any experience with anti-bark collars, please let me know how it worked for you.

[Ali]

We had good results with the type that emit a high pitched sound when the dog barks. I have heard they are the least effective, but it worked for us and was the cheapest one we found. We put in on the dog only to go outside (she was an indoor dog mostly, but needed to be out a few time periods a day). Out side she just could not help herself from barking at everything! The collar worked well. She'd bark once and look surprised when she heard the sound, bark again and then quit. We kept it off inside, because we wanted her to alert us to anything wrong in the house.

[SouthPaw]

i would only recommend citronella collars. they are an aversive but not painful/harmful. electric shock collars can be both of the latter, especially on a smaller dog. when does the dog bark? what kind of quiet-training have you done with him?

[Amber]

I have seen some pretty good results with the citronella collars.

I wouldn't use a shock collar.

[Joyce]

when does the dog bark?
He loves to bark and run along the fenceline with the neighbor dog. It's a game. The neighbors do not mind the barking. Their dog has the more quiet bark. He barks whenever he sees another dog, suspicious character, or varmin within the range of property he considers "his territory". His territory is all property he can see from any window in our house not occupied by another dog. Suspicious characters can include people on bicycles and people with strollers, or sometimes just people (strangers, not the neighbors) walking by. Varmin includes rabbits, stray cats, squirrels, and the like. Of course, EVERYTHING he ever learned in those beginning and intermediate obedience courses goes OUT the brain when the doorbell rings.

what kind of quiet-training have you done with him?
:shifty Well, um....we've tried such unsuccessful techniques such as yelling at him to be quiet. Currently, if he's inside when he barks we send him downstairs until he quiets himself down. We've done this so much when he barks he sends himself downstairs. If he's outside when he barks, we call him inside and send him downstairs. We've done this so much he automatically thinks he's in trouble every time he comes inside from outside and he goes downstairs. (sigh...)

He's a 45 pound pooch, if that matters any.

We had good results with the type that emit a high pitched sound when the dog barks.
Ali, what kind of dog do you have? I saw this option, too, but didn't consider it because I do not think my dog would "get it". :think

[scottishthistle]

we did do a shock collar- for a very furry dog but it didn't work a bit, don't waste your money. Eventually our dog grew out of the need to bark all the time

[luvinmykidz]

I am sorry if this offends anyone but since we are a gentle mothering board I cannot imagine why one would want to use something punitive and painful for their dog?? :scratch

[Firebird Rising]

We use a citronella collar on our very obnoxious macho un-neutered 110 lb labrador retriever and it works great. We did little training and he is not harmed in any way. I like the smell and the refill canisters last about a month for us (25 sprays each time you fill the collar and he empties it every night). We still get some "woof" "woof", but none of the big mean-sounding, "woof-woof-woof-woof-woof" that he did every time he saw a blade of grass move.

Now if we can just raise the money to get him neutered, I'm sure that will help too.

Jen D.

[Ali]

I could have sworn I replied here days ago, now it's gone.  :shrug 

I don't think you have to be punitive with a dog, but I certainly train my dog much much differently than I raise my children.  I don't care for the shock collars, personally, but I'm also not familiar with "GBD for dogs" as a philosophy.
 
Joyce, we had a pitbull mix and the noise collar was effective for her, but she was a little on the sensitive side.  We had one like this:  http://petsafe-warehouse.com/bark_control_collars/sonic_bark_control_collar.htm

eta: I need to apologize for the above comment about "GBD for dogs." That was snarky and not appropriate and I'm very sorry. :blush

[SouthPaw]

I am sorry if this offends anyone but since we are a gentle mothering board I cannot imagine why one would want to use something punitive and painful for their dog?? :scratch


i would never intentionally hurt my dog but i would definitely be punitive towards my dog. dogs are completely different from people and they will not learn by 5 stepping or modelling :no you can train a dog positively and i think most training should be proactive, but there is definitely a time and a place for punishments with animals.

[SouthPaw]

oh, and i really think the citronalla would be your best bet, OP :yes sounds like the "time out" (what i would recommend) isn'tcutting it and citronella collars are humane and effective :hug

[Ali]

Dixie, I am with you. To clarify, I mis-spoke as inflicting pain = punitive. I mean't to say you don't have to use pain to teach a dog, but training animals in our house sometimes means being punitive, which to me is imposing unrelated consequences for actions (like being sprayed with a water bottle when you get on the table) - things I don't do with my child.

[scottishthistle]

We did the collar out of pure desperation. I have never spanked my kids so I don't know why I thought it was a good idea? Certainly not something I'd repeat

[luvinmykidz]

Well I had dogs growing up and we never had to inflict any kind of pain on them to teach them things :shrug I wasn't suggesting you use the 5 steps with your dog :no but I just think that there really is no reason to have to harm an animal to teach them anything but thats just me... :duck

PS: what are those other dog collars that were mentioned that didn't shock?? Never heard of them before. :think

[Ali]

The one's that don't shock either spray citronella or make a high-pitched sound. The sound ones are called "ultrasonic".

[Amber]

Well I had dogs growing up and we never had to inflict any kind of pain on them to teach them things :shrug I wasn't suggesting you use the 5 steps with your dog :no but I just think that there really is no reason to have to harm an animal to teach them anything but thats just me... :duck

PS: what are those other dog collars that were mentioned that didn't shock?? Never heard of them before. :think

The citronella collars don't shock, they spray a spritz of citronella in front of the dogs nose. It isn't harmful, but most dogs don't like the smell. The think with the collars is that most dogs are smart enough to know when they are wearing it, so they won't bark with the collar on, but many will if it is off.