Collar that gives electric shocks, cruel?

[Lynli]

My neighbour has a dog which barks all day and often late into the night.

In fact any time she leaves the house it barks until she returns.

Although this does annoy me I wasn't sure there was much she could do about it.

Her neighbour on the other side came to see me and DH today and said she was going to tell the dog owner to get a collar that gives an electric shock every time the dog barks.

I do not have any animals and to be honest I am not keen on them, but this sounds rather cruel.

Does anyone have any experience of these collars and are they as bad as they sound?

If anyone has any more humane methods of stopping this dog barking all day, I would be very grateful.

Very cruel, poor dog. Left on its own all day, bored and quite possibly frightened and then neighbour reckons give it shocks into the bargain?

Your neighbour needs to employ a dog walker/ sitter so the dog is not left for long periods. Or take the dog with her when she goes out.

she shouldn't own a dog and leave it all day.

call the rspca.... shouldn't be left stressed out like that

Extremely cruel. In fact, so cruel that they are illegal in Wales and all manner of England-based animal welfare organisations from the RSPCA through to private rescuers are campaigning to have the bloody things banned.

Your first move should be to speak to the neighbour and alert her to the problem. If you can, help source a local dogwalker (or even kindly neighbour who will pop in on pooch/walk him/keep him company). Inform her too that the local Dog Warden can give her advice and tips, as can a trainer or behaviouralist.

The words "dog warden" might make her take her responsibilities a bit more seriously.

Beachy, the RSPCA will do nothing but suggest the OP contacts her local council's dog warden.

Thanks everyone, I know her circumstances changed when she split with her partner and then needed to work more.

I will talk to her.

There is a version you can buy that instead of giving electric shocks, it gives a squirt of citrus smelling liquid.

I think the idea is the dog barks, collar squirts and the dog thinks 'hmm whats that?' and is distracted while it trys to work out where the smell came from.

It doesn't squirt at the dog, it's attached to the collar and squirts away from the dog.

But if the dog is alone all day, then a dog walker would be appropriate.

The RSPCA are worse than useless. A friend recently rescued a dog and rehomed it herself after the RSPCA refused to do anything at all. This poor collie had been left with no shelter or exercise in a concrete back yard for a year. The owner's ex DP helped her rescue the dog. You can imagine how we all felt when we watched an episode of the RSPCA propaganda programme (can't remember what it's called) and they were rescueing a collie in exactly the same circumstances! My friend wrote a letter of complaint to our local RSPCA, basically saying that it was amazing that they couldn't help the dog she rescued, but it was possible when the cameras were around! She's still waiting for a response!

yes tehy are cruel. please dont support anyone in doing this to an animal.

I would NEVER consider using a shock collar. Extremely cruel.

Not only cruel, dangerous!

Far from being a quick fix for behaviour like barking, they can make it worse and cause other unwanted behaviours.

For example, say the dog barks at birds in the garden. Attach a shock collar and the dog barks at the bird as normal but receives an electric shock at the same time. The dog does not necessarily associate barking as being the trigger for the shock, it may associate the appearance of the bird with the shock; or a leaf that happened to be blowing past as the shock occurred. Suddenly you have a dog that is even more intent on barking at birds/blowing leaves because they inflict pain and must be kept away at all costs.

Besides, you say that the dog barks when the neighbour is out so an electric shock collar would be useless in this situation anyway. E-collars are operated by remote control and need the owner present to inflict the shock with precision timing (to avoid the sort of incorrect associations detailed before).

Spray collars are not that effective either. I know a few people that have tried them. One dog learned to shake his head vigorously so that the collar would move and the spray was redirected. Another learned that the collar would empty so would emit a volley of sustained barking to empty it, and then continued barking at his leisure.

My friend's dog did exactly the same as Lucy describes, when she used a spray collar to stop him barking; he learned that it ran out eventually, so he'd bark WORSE until it emptied, then carry on as normal. Rather than the irritating "WOOF..... (20 second pause).... WOOF..... (20 second pause).... WOOF...." ad infinitum they were used to, they got "WOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOFWOOF.....(smug 20 second pause)....WOOF.....(pause).....WOOF"

And my mate's dog is the most stupid dog in the world. If he worked it out, any dog could.

Horrible! I think you should try it on the neighbour personally.

a woman i work with has just taken on a 3rd labrador, and uses an electric shock collar on him, he wears it 8 hours a day :(

i have shared my thoughts on the matter, the dog is also crated everytime she is out the house. she works two jobs from 6am -3pm almost everyday

breaks my heart