You’re losing sleep, the neighbors are complaining, nobody in your house can watch TV or talk on the phone without earbuds, delivery trucks in the driveway or friends at the front door bring on a hounds-of-heck barking explosion from your otherwise usually mild-mannered family dog. You’re frustrated.
You’d do anything to stop the barking! You see an online ad that promises success, you impulsively order a device, you wait impatiently for it to arrive. You have hope! You may stop the barking!
The device arrives. (If you ordered from a country you don’t live in, the device arrives months later, long after you have completely lost hope.) The instructions are not easy to understand.
You know enough to charge it up. Then you put the device into use.
The device does not seem to work.
You’re not sure what it’s supposed to do, exactly. You read the instructions again. Unclear. You remember one assurance from the online ad—the device will stop your dog’s barking … forever.
Nope.
Now the dog is acting unusually.
You’re not sure why.
You don’t know what to do next.
Try it again?
I posted: “When anti-bark devices don’t stop a dog’s barking, what has gone wrong?”
I asked dog professionals and dog guardians for their answers to that question.
Lynn Brezina (Illinois) The failure to address the underlying problem, which is not always easy to identify.
Photo by Abigail Witthauer
Denise Nuttall (United Kingdom) The motivation for barking has not been identified. Barking is multi-functional. Dogs bark because they are fearful, lonely, distressed, angry, happy, bored, deaf, or because they are replying socially to another dog. None of these factors will be addressed by an anti-bark collar. I once worked with someone who used one because their dog barked when they were out. What the dog learned was that, when their owners went out, they received shocks to their neck. This made them more anxious, resulting in even more barking even though they were being “punished” for it. Barking can easily be addressed by dealing with the underlying cause.
Julie Ellingson (California) I had a similar experience with a customer who left a bark collar on their dog at the grooming parlor. The dog barked, yelped when it got shocked, got shocked for yelping, and then started screaming in pain and fear and was being shocked for it the entire time. We could not get that damned thing off fast enough. That poor dog. This was many years ago. I still hate them.
Don Hanson (Maine) If barking is intolerable to a person, then we must ask why they have a dog?
Christine Hale Vertucci (Illinois) It’s frequently intolerable to the neighbors, especially for those living in multi-unit buildings. While I was working for the shelter, we had so many dogs that were surrendered or at risk for surrender [for barking].
Jeanne Brennan (California) Anyone I ever met who tried bark collars (shock or citrus spray) did it due to neighbor complaints.
Connie Sagona Petit (New Hampshire) Wouldn’t know. I’ve never used a device. I taught my dogs to stop barking when I say, “No bark!”
Beth Fabel (Washington) For what it’s worth, I used to say that. Then I got Jasper and despite extensive training, his being a really good dog, having a happy fulfilling life, etc., he’s still the barkiest dog I ever met. He reacts and barks at the TV, disturbances he sees outside, his little brother when they get playing, anything. If I lived in an apartment I would probably have been evicted.
Connie Sagona Petit I confess, Dexter (the current dog) is only a year and a half old, and is a slower learner than those who came before him. Last night a TV doorbell made him lose his marbles, and this morning the snow plow did the same. He’s a work in progress, but he’s getting there. Now, when I say, “No bark,” he runs to stuff his mouth full of his favorite ball so he can’t bark!
Timothy Page (Oregon) I taught Chiquis to obey the “hush” command with actual training. Lalo learned the hush command by osmosis with Chiquis. Somehow, the hush command was one of the few commands that Coco came with. First time I said “hush” he went silent instantly. For Chiquis, she was crated at flyball, but would bark whenever she was in the crate. As soon as she went silent even for a second, I would go and give her a treat. I began expecting a longer silence before treating. As I added the word “hush” to the process, she learned, and eventually no more treats were needed. Sometimes, much much later, when sitting in the window watching the passersby with me saying “hush,” she would mumble in her dog voice, “But I wanna bark.” It really sounded similar to that. She was such a sweet princess.
Glenda Lee (Maine) Lack of training. The dog upstairs barks constantly. And then gets yelled at. At the age of 13 not too likely to stop, but if he’d been taught from the get-go he wouldn’t be as likely to bark every time a dog within a two-mile radius scratches an ear!
Christine Hale Vertucci (Illinois) Dog becomes collar wise. Doesn’t bark while collar is on, but barks when it’s off. Or, for progressive collars, the dog figures out how many times it can bark before the collar reaches the level the dog finds punishing.
Tom Robinson (Washington) My former neighbors had two dogs that were rescued and totally untrained. When I was in my yard, they would not stop barking at me. Treats stopped them only while the treats were present, then they went back to incessant barking. I tried a couple of the cheap handheld high-frequency bark stoppers and each of them made the dog shake its head and move away. Each of [the devices] died after just a few weeks. Poor quality.
Annie Zeck (Washington) You say, okay, suddenly I shock and hurt my dog and then expect him to be quiet. Does surprising pain make you quiet? Then why … ?
Dia Barney Nonaka (Arizona) When an attempt to teach a dog something is unsuccessful, people often ask what went wrong. What’s wrong with the dog? The equipment? The answer to “What went wrong?” is almost always “the human.” With these devices, the most common peril is the human. In general, people do not want to hurt their dog. These devices attempt to curb barking by responding to the barks with something unpleasant. It has to be unpleasant to work. People don’t want to cause their dogs discomfort, though, so they set them to the lowest possible setting. While annoying, it isn’t anything enough to curb the barking. So barking continues. People escalate the intensity while the dog gets increasingly used to it. Now you have a human who has caused their dog the very discomfort they sought to avoid … and a barking dog. People want it to work without hurting the dog. But it has to hurt them, or at least annoy them sufficiently, to work.
Nan Kene Arthur (Arizona) Dog developed a fear of anything that beeps, since the collar beeps before it shocks. I’ve had a couple of clients like that. TV, alarms, and phones beeping would flatten these dogs and one would pee when beeps happen. Far better to figure out why a dog barks and help them rather than hurt them.
Micha Michlewicz (Maryland) Dogs bark. This is one of their limited vocalizations as a species. For humans, a species that talks so much more, we have very little tolerance for any barking. These collars don’t work on anything but a most superficial level, because they don’t address the underlying reason for the barking. Dogs have needs and desires that aren’t being met, in addition to just normal, healthy barking. Separation anxiety, boredom from lack of stimulation, over-stimulation from too much stress imposed on them, fear, anxiety, needing to use the bathroom, etc. All of these needs should be addressed. The everyday, normal barking is more responsive to just teaching a “Quiet” cue (waiting for quiet, putting the word to it and rewarding it), or teaching them to bark at a lower volume (waiting for quieter barks, putting the cue word to it, and rewarding). No need for collars. They’re not constructive.
What do you do now?
Try to get your money back. If the device doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work. Good luck.
Comment on the seller’s ads online, especially if you’ve gone through the formal process of requesting a refund. (That gives you more credibility, I think, to readers of the comments.)
File complaints with state authorities if the device seller is in the U.S.
Complain to the social media sites that accept ads from the seller.
Don’t pass the anti-bark device onto a friend or donate it to a charity shop. Bin it. That’s all it’s worth.
From an online ad for an anti-bark device: “You deserve peace and quiet.”
I had to add another question: “What does your dog deserve?”
