Due to the irrisponsibility of others, I am now caring for a worthless canine. This dog has no redeeming qualities and plenty of negative ones. It has so far murdered my beloved Pokey out of jealosy, and caused a serious and expensive car crash out of disobedience. If it were up to me this little so and so would have been put down years ago, but that is not politically possible. She is of no use to anyone and a big liability. She isn’t stupid and will learn all kinds of tricks as long as you have a food bribe, but won’t obey the simplest commands that she knows by heart without one. She carefully monitors all escape routes and if you should leave the door open for a few seconds she observes you with an innocent smile, and the minute you turn your eyes off her she is out like a shot and won’t come back until she has had her fill of cat poop and harassing every other dog in the neighborhood.
But there is one problem that has driven me over the limit. Barking. And of course her barking patterns are the exact opposite of what one would desire. IF YOU ARE HOME, and someone comes to knock at the door, 1 millisecond after the very first knock it’s “yap yap yap yap yap yap yap yap wooohooo yap yap yap yap yap yap wooohf! yap yap yap yap yap waaahff!” continuing until someone grabs her, the person leaves, or the person comes in the house at which point she begins five other kinds of misbehavior, but that is another problem. Of course a complete stranger could break in and unless someone was here, she would not emit a peep, and would be happy to see a new friend (mark) who might just let her out accidentally or give her food.
She will launch into the yapping routine even for such non-events as the wind rattling the door in the frame. For a Jack Russel mix she is incredibly loud and I am tired of jumping out of my chair or being awakened from sound sleep several times a day because of this worthless little animal.
So, do bark collars work or is it the pound for her?
The anti-barking dog collars work by giving the dog an incentive to NOT bark by giving a small shock with every bark. This is a negative feed back and the dog quickly learns to keep his/her mouth shut.
Don’t overdo it or the dog will not be a good watch dog and raise an alarm when such is really needed.
Bits of food are positive reward reinforcement for good behavior. Get a good book on dog training and good luck.
I’ve heard from trainers that shock collars work fine, as long as you follow the directions and set the right settings. Some trainers also recommend citronella collars as more humane than shocks. It’s up to you.
That being said…
A dog with such behavioral problems needs someone with the time and willingness to train her right. Have you considered looking for a rescue group that will take her, rehabilitate her, and find her someone who wants her? You’re not doing yourself or the dog any favors having a dog you really don’t want and don’t have the time to train. I’m not saying you’re a bad person in any way…some people just don’t mix with some dogs.
Dogs are not “fixable,” with a minor adjustment here and there. If you don’t want the dog, don’t keep him. PLEASE don’t keep him. Adding a dial here and beeper there is only going to frustrate you further because it doesn’t work like that.
A dog will behave exactly like he believes you want him to behave, for the simple reason that he wants to make you happy. Training is NOT about correcting a dog’s maladjusted behavior; it’s to facilitate the mutual communication that makes such a relationship possible. If you’re not willing to enter into that kind of relationship, find the dog a home.
Given the tone of the OP, I will add that while it may be possible (just not in my experience) it is certainly not efficient to attempt to train a dog you don’t like. As mentioned up thread, dogs obey to obtain your approval. If you don’t like the dog, the approval isn’t real…and they can tell.
As I have said, this dog is very smart and trainable if she sees something in it for herself, but she is just manipulating you. She is a doggie sociopath. She had a very bad childhood, with an owner that abused her terribly. Her raising since then, many years later has been poor. Her “owner” never worked with her, left her to her own devices with one of those feeders that lets them gorge and she got so fat that I didn’t even recognize her. One of my challenges has been to get her back to a healthy weight which she is now approaching.
I am pretty good with dogs and my dogs are always wonderful. I will talk about Pokey here someday, and in fact my grief over his death was one of my first threads here. But this dog has been rendered a Seab by her previous experiences with our kind, and she now seems to regard us humans as folks to be tricked, used, and outsmarted. She uses her wiles to get her way and make trouble. Someone could have been killed over her little traffic deal, but she thinks it is all just a game.
I do have some love for the little wretch, and I try to practice good behavioral psychology with her, and she has showed some improvement, but this barking pattern is something that I cannot conceive of a behavioral remedy for aside from the one under consideration in this thread.
Anyway, I am intrigued about the oderant systems discussed (although a little zap on the neck probably wouldn’t be undeserved), because it seems more humanitarian, but how are we to know? With a doggies sensitive nose, a smell like that may will be the equivalent of being maced! So is it doggie taser or doggie mace?
Also, how good are these things at differentiating between a bark and some other noise, say on a movie soundtrack? Is Rover going to be sitting there, minding his own business and some dog in the 5.1 soundtrack is barking and the thing activates by mistake? Will watching a “Lassie” rerun electrocute the poor thing?
I have no use for a watchdog. No-one makes it past my electronic frontier without my knowledge. Come on my property and I will put you in jail. I have done it before.
When we leave home, our dog barks at passers by and anything that goes bump in the night. We have gone to a neighbor’s home for visits and could hear our dog barking, for what might be considered more than necessary. We do have an acre, as do all or our neighbors, so it is not like a city neighborhood with houses close together. We learned that our dog stands at one place in the yard where she can see the road and barks at anything on the road.
We purchased a very inexpensive device called a Bark-Off (as I recall it was under $20 at Walgreen’s). We placed the device about six feet off the ground facing and in close proximity to the dog’s favorite spot to stand and bark.
Our dog responded very well to the Bark-Off and sometimes barks when we are at home and the device is off, but does not bark when we are gone and she knows the device is on. Even when we arrive home, she greets us quietly with small whimpers. Once inside with us as we return home, she barks and scampers and is glad we are home, but no barking outside in the “shadow” of the Bark-Off. The battery has gone dead, and the dog believes that when we leave, the device is on and will not bark.
All dogs are different, but this is a cheap try to control your dog’s baking that has worked for us.
So you have THREE badly socialized dogs with inappropriate behaviors?
Because (as a generalization) pit bulls are well known to be such people-lovers they make poor watchdogs, and are famous for their friendliness toward strangers. A pit bull who bites first is an outlier or one who has been abused or mistrained.
