Among new dog owners the question of training their dog not to bark at the wrong time can be very difficult to answer. The most common solution is a bark shock collar but new owners often take a dislike to that word ‘shock’.
Dog owners have to realize that dogs understand things like “punishment” or “reward” in a different way that humans do. Dogs don’t have a good sense of the future and they live mostly in the present, so unless you correct them at the very moment they do something bad, they won’t understand your actions. Some new owners might feel that punishing a dog is morally wrong, without realizing that a dog’s sense of punishment and resistance is much more different from humans, For example, scolding the dog or shouting at it for several minutes might make the dog miss the link between the bad behavior and the scolding.
So why Does a Bark Shock Collar Work?
A dog bark shock collar will deliver a static shock to the dog whenever it starts barking. The shock is instantaneous and since it happens when the dog barks, the dog is much more likely to make a better connection between bad behavior and punishment. Once the dog makes the link between barking and punishment, it learns to stop the former to avoid the later. The dog’s natural resistance and thicker skin prevents it from feeling pain; in fact, it’s the confusion caused by the static shock that makes it stop barking while it wonders what is happening.
Far from being cruel, a shock bark collar is the only way that an immediate message can be sent to your dog when it behaves incorrectly and, by repetition, teaches your dog how not to be punished.
A bark shock collar shouldn’t be used more than 30 minutes a day, and only at times where barking would be troublesome. Dogs are smart and they will learn to stop “bad” barking in order to avoid the punishment once they figure out the link between the barking and the shock. If you simply follow the collar’s instructions that come with it, you’ll teach your dog not to bark unnecessarily in no time, and your neighbors will thank you for it.