Anti-barking devices - what is the verdict on them?

[RocksByThePool]

As in the thread title - does anyone have information on anti-barking devices? The ones that are designed to emit frequencies for different levels, and can be raised on a post, or hand held.

Has anyone used one? Are they a con? Are they cruel to the dog? I have heard of cat-repelling devices that perhaps do a similar thing, that my neighbour had in the ground.

Cruel and ought to be illegal.

Yeah I’d have to agree they’re cruel. It’s not treating the underlying issue, just punishing the dogs anxiety or whatever. We’ve had our terrier pup 9 years, tried all sorts of training techniques and even medication but nothing stops him barking like mad and trying to nip certain people’s ankles when they leave the house. We have just taken to herding him outside or behind the baby gate whenever we need to - it’s not perfect and he still bark loads and tries to bite the gate, but once the ‘threat’ has gone, he instantly settles. Believe me I’ve had day dreams about removing his voice box or zapping him with a collar, but I’d never actually do that as he is an animal with limited understanding who essentially I am keeping captive in my home.

They are aversive, and to my mind belong to a less enlightened era. The collar sits on the dogs voice box puffs air or citronella or whatever every time the dog starts barking.

My lab bitch was very barky when we adopted her - she’d spent the first year of her life in a cage. Barking is not a lab trait ( unlike certain breeds)

I approached it as anxiety , and focused on activities abd aids which made her calm- Adaptil, Nutracam.

Best thing for her was living in a calm home with a big chill ‘brother’ lab.

But a lot depends on breed. For example , if you have a miniature schnauzer, you are probably going to need ear defenders.

Cruel. How would you feel if you were punished for speaking? My dog barks briefly when someone comes to our home. He’s just telling us that he’s happy to meet someone new. It’s normal dog behaviour.

I wish that I could find something that worked on my neighbour's dogs, as they bark constantly whenever they are outside, and much more frantically if they see anyone or anything moving... including me and my pets through the windows of my house (which is partly why I have film up on the windows)🙄Going outside when they are out is unbearable in terms of noise levels, and they are out for long periods of time.

I think that they can be useful if they are able to calm the dog(s) down. Barking may come naturally to some dogs, but as a lot of people live in built-up areas, I wouldn't want to listen to a barking dog all day, or inflict one on my neighbours.

They don’t calm the dogs down, though - they just frighten them into silence and often result in the dogs displaying different, worse behaviour instead.

They're cruel. You need to look into positive training techniques, not aversive ones.

Awful things. What the dog needs is training on the issues causing the barking. Some dogs however are just barky by nature and there is very little you can do about it.

I'll go against the grain to the rest of the posters.

I have a very barky dog (by breed) and use an anti-barking collar. It works wonderfully! Once it comes out (even not being switched on), the demand barking stops.

Worth noting that it only gets used for demand barking or excessive barking, not for him communicating. I want him to be able to voice himself, just not that he wants the cheese in the fridge rather than the food in his bowl.

He will generally get one warning, and if it comes continues, it goes on his neck (but not switched on).

People say they are cruel, but it doesn't get switched on now. And dogs need positive AND negative feedback to learn. Positive only doesn't cut the mustard for many working breeds.

If there is a dog barking all day because it's not exercised enough and bored out of their mind, different story entirely.

That's interesting, @Slave2Pew . I was just about to post something negative about the devices, but I hadn't thought about the distinction you made - the notion of "demand barking". In my experience, demand barking is much much more amenable to training than other sorts of barking and I can begin to see soe sort of role for a device in these circs (depending on the exact device of course).

I don't think I personally would use these devices, and they certainly aren't a substitute for training, but I can begin to see that there might be some, quite minimally aversive, devices that might be a useful aid to training, provided that their use was competent and well-informed. I guess the danger with these devices is that a lot of people will use them in a way that is clumsy, ineffective and distressing for the dog.

If you cannot train your dog without using aversive methods you're either incompetent, or you've got the wrong breed for you (admittedly there might be the odd dog that goes against breed standard - but in terms of barking, it's really not that hard to train out of a dog).

If you're the neighbour of someone who has a barking dog, I can see why you might want to. But ultimately it can damage children's hearing as well as wildlife. And they don't stop dogs barking - they're more likely to encourage it.

Someone near me (a few roads away) has one and tbh all the noise does is cause my dogs to bark out of fear when we go past her house. It's the only time they ever bark - walking past her house. So at 6 in the morning, if I go that way, she gets 5 Golden Retrievers barking in terror. As soon as we're away from the noise they're silent again.

Twat. Feel sorry for her neighbours.

Mine is also a working breed (beagle) and used to demand bark - and I managed to stop it by just ignoring him and teaching him it didn’t get him anywhere.

IMO if you have a working breed and need to shock or scare them into doing what you ask then I don’t think you have the right breed for you.

I know I’ll likely get shot down in flames for that.

Just to add, though, I'm sure that there are loads of dogs on which they just shouldn't be used AT ALL. So much so, that I feel that their use should probably be only possible under the supervision of a qualified animal behaviourist.

My terrier is very wary by nature, and any misjudgement on my part in relation to even the mildest type of negative reinforcement would be potentially disastrous.