Citronella Bark Collar: The Most Popular Anti Bark Collar
The most popularly used dog training collars today are the citronella spray collar. This collar is by far more humane for the dogs, simply releasing an unpleasant (for dogs) fine spray that shoots up onto the dogs muzzle whenever it barks.
This type of anti bark collar is said to work in approximately 85% of cases. Not only can this collar be used to train or to stop a dog from barking incessantly (and driving everyone up the wall at the same time) but if you purchase a remote controlled anti bark collar you can also use it to curb other unwanted activities such as chasing other dogs or cats, jumping up on people to greet them, chasing cars, damaging their dog cages, etc. Virtually any behaviour that you would like to modify could be done using the remote anti bark collar.
How to use the remote anti bark collar
Naturally you would need to be at home to use this collar, and preferably hidden, out of sight so that your dog doesn’t see you. If the dog sees you he might associate you with the unpleasant spray from the anti bark collar, and you don’t want that! For example, if you were expecting visitors and your dog always jumps up on people when they come up to your front door you could hide inside the living room and peek out at the dog from behind the curtains. When the visitors arrive and doggie goes jumping up, you activate the spray. The dog will most likely be so startled and curious as to where the spray came from that he will stop jumping up immediately. You could do the same for a dog that chases the cat, or digs holes in the garden.
How the regular spray anti bark collar works
With the regular (not remotely controlled) anti bark collar, each time your dog barks a microphone included on the collar detects the barking and the anti bark collar releases a fine jet spray of liquid. The sound of the spray and the sudden feeling of the spray distracts the dog from barking. Over time, this trains your dog that every time it barks it will get sprayed. In order to avoid getting sprayed, the dog will limit its barking.
Most citronella spray anti bark collars include a spray refill when you buy the kit, and some also come with replacement batteries. If not, be sure to buy extra spray and extra batteries when you purchase the collar. Depending on how much you use the citronella spray anti bark collar the battery can run out pretty quickly, and if your dog is just starting to ‘get it’ you wouldn’t want to have to run out to get new batteries in the middle of his training.
Look for a spray bottle that has a see-through window so you can see what level the liquid is at. Many collars allow you to adjust the strength of the spray to either a short or a long duration. Collars also have an on/off switch, remember to turn the collar off when you’re not needing to use it to conserve your battery use.
One drawback with anti bark collars that are set off by sound is that the microphones can sometimes pick up other dogs barking. Usually they try to calibrate them so as not to pick up on other sounds, but if you have more than one dog living close together you may need to keep an eye out for this. It would be horrid if your dog was sprayed every time the neighbors yappy little pup barked! This generally shouldn’t be a problem, the more likely scenario would be if you have two dogs.
A final caution, the effects of the Anti Bark collar cannot be expected to be permanent, no matter what behavior you’re trying to modify. You might want to keep a collar on hand, even once the bad habit of barking is alleviated, and use it again from time to time if you see the problem behavior recurring again.
