Anti barking collar

[whatever17]

Am willing to be shouted down.

My 9 month old pup is lovely but won't shut up in the garden. He barks at planes, cars - 50 yards away behind a fence on the street, obviously anyone approaching the front door, squirrels, birds, everything.

We say "No!" in a deep voice but then he lies there gruffing and growling thinking about invaders. Sometimes he wakes us up at night and seems so convincing that we let him out the back door and it is just squirrels.

What about one of those American anti-bark collars?

Usually a waste of money.

If he is barking because he is nervous it will make him worse

If he is barking for the fun of it he will get used to the collar and just keep on barking anyway.

I had a client with a collie who used one (before he meet me and we did proper training!!) and the collie had learnt to bark at a tone that did not set of the bark collar

We have tried a couple (dachshunds are very barky, I'm upstairs at my desk most of the time so hard to do door training. ).

The first, on our previous dog, was supposed to emit a highpitched noise which the dog wouldn't like. Either he couldn't hear it or totally ignored it.

The second, on our current dog, was the sort which sprays a little water. It sort of worked ... when it was working, it kept turning itself off.

So, not too convinced. From what you describe, even if the collar has some effect he'll still 'lie there gruffing and growling' (which wont set off the collar). I think you need to give him something else to do, not just say 'No'.

No, absolutely not. I'd tackle this several ways. Firstly, is your dog getting enough exercise? Sounds like he is looking for an occupation, and has learned that barking gains him attention. I'd up the exercise and the training you do with him at home.

There are more expert people on here who can explain it far better than me but this sounds like a wonderful opportunity for some clicker training- I know previous posters have discussed training their dogs to bark on command and he reverse.

in general, so called "aversive" techniques are now regarded as being old fashioned, cruel, ineffective and not actually in tune with how dogs learn. Most dogs do far better with lots of positive reinforcement for behaviours that you want to see (hence the success of clicker training) - see this website here for an explanation of why such techniques are cruel and ineffective. You might also find it helpful to work with a sensible behaviourist.

Cruel, please don't get one