The word I am looking for is consistency.

If you do not have it then its not going to work and you are going to be wasting your time and I would recommend that you don’t even buy a anti bark collar.  The reason why I am saying this is because I talked one of my best friends into buying a collar and he is doing just this.

Its pissing me off to no end.  I go over his house everyday and for days I wont see his dog with it on and then it will be on and then it wont.  How in the hell do you think you are going to accomplish anything?  Why in the hell did we go to the pet store when it was -20 degrees outside spend 30 minutes looks for the thing buy it and he not use it right.  Its worthless.

The first day he put the collar on it was working fine.  No problem whatsoever.  His dog barked and it shocked him.  I mean it really got him.  He barked again and it shocked him.  These things work great on pugs, I’m telling you, just great.  If you have a pug then you really want to think about buying an anti bark collar for your pug but YOU HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT.  Don’t put it on your dog and leave it off the next day.  You have to put it on your dog and leave it there for a week.  Its tough love.

I hear questions all the time “do anti bark collars really work” and I say yes the absolutely do.  But you have to know how to use them.  You cannot put the zap collar on your dog and then feel sorry for your dog and take it off then get tired of him barking again and put it back on.  It doesn’t work like that.  You are just going to waste your money.

The dog also learns as time goes by.  The collar will give your dog three beeps.  Three warnings.  After the third beep the collar shocks the dog.

But the problem is that after some time the dog figures it out and barks only twice.  So if the mailman is passing by the dog will give a “bark, bark” and then stop.  This is what my friends dog has learned.  Give any animal time and they will learn how to survive.  Like us.  Like humans adapt so do animals.  Your dog will get used to the warning beeps on the collar.

Don’t go asking for your money back if it does not work.  It does.  Anti bark collars work great.  I promise you that.  I have put these on several dogs and LEFT IT THERE and I have no complaints.  I left it on them for one weeks.  One solid week is all you need.  The gadget will solve you barking problems.  Barking dogs upset the neighbors, your friends even though they will not tell you, and family.

In many places they are passing ordinances giving out fines to owners of barking dogs who cannot keep them silent.  You would be wise to heed the counsel.  Put the zero bark collar on your dog and leave it there.  I hope I have said that enough.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Riverside County Board of Supervisors approved Tuesday an anti-nuisance ordinance aimed at silencing noisy dogs by slapping their owners with fines that can range as high as $500.

The ordinance, which the board tentatively approved in December, also changes the way dog nuisance complaints are handled by delegating authority to administrative hearing officers to determine whether a nuisance gripe is justified and how to remedy the problem.

Under current county law, when a resident in an unincorporated community complains about a barking, howling or otherwise noisy dog, an Animal Services officer investigates the matter, generally by visiting the location where the disturbance has been reported, according to Riverside County Animal Services Field Commander Rita Gutierrez.

She said because officers are busy and can’t wait around some place to document the disturbance first-hand, investigations can drag on for months as the residents affected by the nuisance collect their own evidence. Often, the result is a $100 to $150 fine imposed on the owner of the nuisance animal. But Gutierrez said that does not consistently solve the problem.

“We can write ticket after ticket on somebody, and they can go down and pay it at the courthouse, but there’s no abatement order,” Gutierrez said in a recent interview.

Matters are further complicated when the infraction is challenged in court, and a busy judge is forced to get to the bottom of the complaint, sometimes dismissing the case — and the fine — out of frustration, according to Gutierrez.

Under the ordinance, an administrative hearing officer — sometimes a practicing attorney with expertise in arbitration — will hear nuisance complaints and make a decision within days.

According to the measure, once Animal Services receive a nuisance complaint, the agency will issue a warning letter to the owner of the noisy dog. If the nuisance is reported again within 12 months of the warning, Animal Services will set a time for a hearing, involving a hearing officer, the owner of the problem animal, the complainant and any witnesses.

If the hearing officer determines an animal is a nuisance, an order will be issued telling the owner to abate the problem, according to the proposed ordinance.

Remedies might include obedience training, containing the animal within an enclosed space, such as a garage, restricting the amount of time the animal is allowed outside — or debarking the dog so it doesn’t vocalize beyond a whisper.

If an owner fails to follow the county’s order within 10 days, civil penalties can be imposed, according to the ordinance. Fines will start at $100. A second violation of the abatement order within 12 months would result in a $200 fine, and for every subsequent violation, dog owners will be fined $500.

“People start to stop and take notice at that point,” said Gutierrez.

She said the ordinance mirrors how the city of Riverside handles noisy animal complaints, “which has worked really, really well.”

The measure will take effect in 30 days.

Woodstock

The no bark collar is a great gadget for getting your cute but yipping pug to stop barking.

So I put the PetSafe anti bark collar on Woodstock as I had said in the previous article .  He was so happy.  I sort of felt bad at first.  He thought, and still does I might add, that it was his usual dog collar that I put on him to go for a walk.  He was excited.

As it turned out a kid got off the school bus not three minutes later.  His attention was immediately diverted.  He started barking at the kid walking home.  The anti bark collar is set to give three little beeps.  Its almost like a warning.  Note:  dogs get smart using this.  The next no bark collar I get I want to be able to change the settings because believe it or not dogs adjust by only barking two times before getting shocked. Woodstock got buzzed.  And he got buzzed good.  He let out a yelp.  I couldn’t help but laugh.  He was perplexed.  “How could this be happening,” he thought.

He got shocked all day.  But he learned real fast.  After several hours and someone passed you could see him wanting to bark but knowing the consequences and holding back.  The dog collar had worked better than expected.  It took one day.  Because Pugs have very short hair so the anti bark gadget works great on them.  They really feel the effect and learn quick.

Remember though you are supposed to take the thing off at night.  The problem with me is that I forget to put it back on and all it takes without consistent use is several days and the dogs are barking again.

I love my dogs.  I have the cutest little pug you have ever seen and a lasso who is way past his prime of being cute.  I live on a busy street.  People jog by all the time, cars pass by every minutes, just tons of activity.  So what does that mean???  It means tons of barking.  Its non stop.  One person jogs by….bark.  Kids get off the school bus…bark.  The mailman…bark.  A person rings the doorbell…double and triple bark.  Its annoying.

So I went to PETCO.  They just built a PETCO store in Anchorage, not too far from where I live, and they have everything, or supposedly.  I take my pug, Woodstock, in with me, and start to look for the anti bark collars.  Couldn’t find them anywhere.  I finally find someone and they take me to the front where a glass case is (much like the case where stores keep cigarettes).

They had 3-4 different styles.  I picked the the Petsafe one.  I got two.

One thing to note about PETCO.  Before I went I looked on the internet for anti bark collars.  I searched on PETCO and found the one I was looking for.  Their website said it was $90.00.  But when I went to PETCO the sticker said $130.00.  They tried to pull a fast one.  One of the managers said it was due to shipping.  Thats a bunch of crap.  I told them I wanted that collar but was not going to pay $130.00.  Someone else in town, a small time store, was selling no bark collars for $99.99.  The only reason I went to PETCO was because of their selection and good price online.  It said that the prices would be the same in the store.  So to make a long story short I negotiated the price of the dog collar down to $85.00.  They still made money, trust me, and I got the collar for under what I had planned.

I will talk about this more another time but the anti bark collars do not work well with all dogs.  For my pug it worked great.  He got buzzed several times and figured it out quickly that his barking days were over.  I wish I could have said the same about the lasso.  His hair was thicker and his bark never triggered the shocking mechanism.  So for a long time I had one dog who didn’t bark and one who did.  Not the situation I was looking for.