PetLvr.com - [The Blog]

Dear PetLvr Mailbag …

When we got our 2nd Papillon dog, Sophie .. it was mid September as a puppy (she was born late July). We then had the coldest winter and earliest snowfall that year and she didn’t get outside socializing much.

Now .. with her ’super-Krypto-like-hearing’ .. whenever she hears other dogs with collars that jingle, she goes crazy and barks and barks and barks. If she’s off the leash outside, she will run out ‘close’ to where the dog with the noisy collar is, and just barks. It’s quite annoying, and not only because of the noise levels .. sometimes a bigger dog with the collar that jingles might not take a liking to that.

I’d like to know how to get her ‘cured’ of this. Most other times she’s the cutest thing since sliced bread of course.

Signed: PetLvr’s very own HART!

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I cringe every time I see a dog wearing a barking collar, particularly the type that delivers a painful shock to a dog’s neck. These collars are stronger than many people think. When I put a standard Petsafe bark collar around my own neck and made a barking noise to trigger it, the shock I received was strong enough to make my knees buckle momentarily. It felt like a baseball bat to the throat. While shock collars are perhaps better than a dog losing its home due to problem barking, these painful collars should be used only as a last result. Most habitually barking dogs can become good neighbors using a combination of enrichment, positive reinforcement training, and management of their environment, without ever subjecting the dog to a shock and to the unpleasant potential side effects of punishment, which include fear and aggression.

Honestly Evaluate Your Involvement in the Problem

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