Advice life hack

How to Stop Your Dog From Barking (the humane way)

Do you have a Barky McBarkface on your hands? Are your mornings, afternoons, evenings filled with the dulcet sounds of yapping?  Anyone who has brought home a new puppy or even a rescue knows how stressful and challenging barking can be. Our case was no different. Every time our little guy went out, he’d bark his fool head off. Squirrel in the yard? Barking. Mailman? Barking. Mysterious invisible spectre passing by a window? You guessed it. Barking. And this was the most shrill, ear-piercing barking I’d ever heard coming from a 17lb pup.

We spoke to a trainer. They quoted us $1000 for a full-blown doggie training experience, which included classes for the owner. Now, that might have been okay, but we weren’t convinced that we needed such intense training. We discussed getting a whistle. We flirted with the idea of getting a shock collar. We even Googled Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, to see if he had some ideas. No solution seemed to be the right one. 

Until… we got this.

PetSafe Gentle Spray Bark Collar for Dogs

(Amazon link)

Here’s how it works.

  1. Follow the instructions to insert the battery.
  2. Fill the collar with the supplied Citronella.
  3. Strap the collar onto your puppy, doggie, etc. Resize as needed.
  4. Switch the collar’s power ON.
  5. Step back and watch.
  6. When the collar “hears” a bark, a thin, gentle, spray of Citronella ejects into your dog’s face. This is just enough of a shock to break off the bark.

We noticed a difference IMMEDIATELY. Knowing that he wasn’t being harmed in any way made the experience slightly comical. More importantly, the barking STOPPED!

That’s right. After months of trying to get McBarkface to calm down, little did we know the solution was only 1 Amazon Prime delivery away. Peace reigns once again in our house. With our guy, he’s so smart, he now barks just under the threshold of what triggers the collar. This is more of a muffled thing, which is a far cry from full-on, soul-crushing yapping. We only put the collar on him when he’s outside. We don’t keep it on him for long. He’s almost to the point where we don’t have to put it on him anymore.

A couple of things we noticed:

  1. If another dog barks within “earshot” of the collar, it will spray whoever is wearing it.
  2. We don’t want to shut off the barking or the excited greetings altogether. Our dog is very vocal. We just wanted the curb the barking. So we are sure to remove the collar when he’s inside.
  3. We’re not sure how this works with multiple crazy dogs.  But I’d start with giving each one a collar. Hope you like the smell of citronella!

 

 

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