Saturday, April 24, 2004
Training Dogs not to Bark
For some reason lately, all the dogs have started barking at the slightest thing. We can walk down the stairs, open a door, make a funny noise, and they start barking ... it is just too much! So, we’ve been exploring techniques to train dogs not to bark.
One thing we’ve done with some limited success is buy a water spraying gun from ToysRUs. Today’s water guns are not anything like what we had when I was a kid. These things look like something The Terminator would carry around, have a huge water reservoir, and are battery powered. When you hold down on the trigger they fire a good stream of water continuously while making noise and flashing lights. So, when the dogs start barking, we start shooting. This stops them from barking at the moment, but isn’t training them not to bark at all.
Today we rented a citronella bark collar from the local feed supply company. These things are expensive, so they let us use one for a week to see how it works. Bart was the closest dog around once I got it assembled, so he is wearing it today. It has a small microphone and when it detects the dog is barking, a brief spritz of citronella spray shoots up from the bottom of the collar toward the dog’s neck/jaw.
Boy is he surprised! He just can’t figure out where this stuff is coming from and he does not like it one bit. We are creating situations where the dogs bark, then rewarding Bart when he finally decides not to join in. After a day or two, we’ll rotate the collar to Heidi or Alex.
I don’t know if this is going to work or not, but it is worth a try.
Our other option is a shock collar, which we just can’t bring ourselves to try (yet).
Posted under: Dog Stuff • by Rick on 04/24/2004 at 02:07 PM
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