Is a bark collar humane?

The shock from the collar isn’t painful, it’s unpleasant. Hold down an excited animal and there is real potential for injury to the animal. Small animals have small bones.

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Additionally,

When they are shocked by the collar, they associate the discomfort with barking.

When you hold them down, they associate being assaulted with you.

:dog2::interrobang:

I used a collar on my dog when I first trained her that had both a beep tone and a shock that I controlled by remote. When she barked I’d tell her “no bark”, give a beep, then a shock. After a couple of days I could tell her no bark and just beep her and, cuz she anticipated the shock, stopped barking. In another day I could say no bark with no beep and she wouldn’t bark. Since I live in an apartment she had to learn to not bark on command quickly and by my command. She no longer even wears the shock collar and barks only when the door is knocked on. Unfortunately, due to my illness, I had to give her to a friend, but I have visitation rights…

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Se - ri - ous - ly try this first:

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You could train the dog not to bark a lot.
Or get a trainer to help you with it.
Good luck!

Thanks,

One of them is going to a “dog training academy” where he’s going to learn not to be such a jerk.

The other little one is just too barky.

The big dog is my only well behaved one, but no one would know because he looks so scary…

My little jerks:

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I had to come before after 3 hours of the dog chain barking at the neighborhoods house, my son barked before he talked even (even though he autistic, still) the collar did beep before the dog barked, and stepped up in voltage. Huge help!I did hear of a golden retriever who found out of he barked 3 times, then pause 45 seconds and repeat. But again, even after knowing that, it worked great.

We live in a doggy neighborhood (our neighbor’s giant sheepdog gets loose about once a week and just ambles around greeting the neighbors) and at night you can hear dogs barking all over from inside their houses. Our dogs go nuts. My co-person calls it the Dog Internet, I call it the Twilight Bark (from 101 Dalmatians).

Our dogs were pretty well behaved until our next door neighbors moved in with their 12 pound ball of scraggly white fur named Sophie. She comes up to a knot in the fence between our yards and barks, “I’M LOOKING AT YOUR YARD!” To which our dogs have to say, “NO SOPHIE, IT’S OUR YARD AND YOU CAN’T LOOK AT IT.” “I’M LOOKING AT IT RIGHT NOW!!!” “STOP IT SOPHIE IT’S AGAINST THE LAW TO LOOK AT SOMEONE ELSE’S YARD” and so on.

After about two months of discourse between them about the legal standing of yard-lookers, we all got cited by Animal Control for noisy animals :persevere: This from the dog-friendliest neighborhood I’ve ever been in. Anyway, the citronella collars really do work!

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They do look like little jerks! Look at the smug looks on their faces! :hushed:
(Just kidding…they look adorable :heart_eyes:)

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Awww cute dogs @anon54386108. :slight_smile:

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That is exactly what they are saying!

God! Dogs are so terrible and so wonderful.

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I am wondering if you mean they bark at what they see through the window? Buy curtains an keep closed so they cant see through that window. A second option would be cheap and temporary if you think they will settle down soon. 2nd option is cover only bottom half of window with wrapping papper and tape (use painters tape for easy removal). Since they are small just covering the bottom part of window if they’re not good jumpers might work. 3rd option is a squirt gun or spay bottle with only water. you can only squirt them while running to the window or actively barking. The squirt bottle is probably best option if you dont have anything to get riuned by small amounts of water. if you can block their view and squirt them when they try to hang out or run towards window. Using both would work better.

Many electrcal devices very in strength as does a dogs pain tolerance.

I tried my dogs electric fence topper once. and anothers persons shock collar too. the electric fence topper was spooky in sensation but not too bad pain wise. i could feel that tingly flowing sensation 10 minutes later. The collar really did hurt. I touched the fence with my hands, but placed the collar on the inside forearm. the collar terminals felt like two hooks popped out and grabbed inside my arm. strangley, the pain only stayed about 3-5 minutes and no residual tingling buzzy feeling like yhe fence.

(the only way to find if the amount of pain or discomfort is too harsh is to find a willing person to try the electric product you buy).

I my case, my dog kept jumping the fence, and risk death of being hit by a car. I knew the fence topper wire didnt hurt too bad, she did cry out in fright. but I made a few grumblings myself too. In my humble opinion, I picked the lesser evil for her and it was humane.
hope it helps?

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i forgot to say- the shock collar i tried was for a german shepard. small ones might use less voltage.

@Moonbeam

Yes, i agree with discontinuing use as soon as the problem seems to stop. No one can help how tight they must be to work. However, if the risk loosing the dogs, a few days discomfort maight be justified. especially if thete is not a no-kill shelter in town who will re home them. A word of caution with the tightness though- the owner of the big shepard had an intial bad experiance that was preventable. remove the collar every 3-4 days and dig through the coat the look at the dogs skin where the terminals make contact. The shepards owner failed to do this for several weeks and found big sores when the collar was finally removed. I hated using an electric device for my dog, but no other choice.

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Before considering this, first think anout removing the stimulus which is causing the barking and it will likely stop. If the dogs are barking at animals, people on the street, keep the dogs in the back yard where they can’t seethem or bring them inside and close the blinds.

Next option may infuriate you or annoy you. You live in a much noisier stimulating environment right now compared to your old place? New sights sounds and smells to take in. While the dogs are barking to celebrate all these new inputs what happens when they become accustomed to their surroundings in a few months to a year? You can assume that at sone point they wil run out of steam, liberal use of the barking collar and other gentler methods in combination should be your approach to stopping the barking, almost like a drug cocktail.

[ pets cat and watches dog owners falling over themselves to fix an unnecessary problem ]

:grin:

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I read something along the lines of this somewhere …

Dogs hear us talk all day long and then they talk for one minute and everyone loses their sh*t :joy:

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