I would like to assure you they are not.  The shock produced by these collars are really not meant to hurt the dog.  The shock is meant to create a small unpleasant sensation that tells them to stop doing whatever they are doing.

I was fairly leery myself of the whole “shock collar” device until I got a pug two years ago.  He is the cutest dog you have ever seen but he will bark non-stop at any and everything.  A school bus, kids, the mailman, other dogs, you name it he barks at it.  It was enough to make your nerves rattle at times.  I had to find some way to address this problem.

I went to the nearby pet store, Petco, and bought an anti bark collar for approximately $100 after some fierce negotiating with the store manager.  They had an ad on their website for one price yet when I went into the store they had another price.  The difference was $30 so I got them to take that off.  Anyway I bought it and put it on my dog that very day.  No keep in mind that most bark collars have several levels of correction so you can choose how strong the shock will be.  Even the top level will not hurt your dog but for small dogs likes mine I keep it at medium.

I have to admit that I did feel bad at first but wow did the training go fast.  With the collar one my dog stopped the constant barking within several hours and stopped most random barking within 2 days.

The bark collar does not just zap the dog whenever he barks.  He has to bark loud and more than three times for it to go off.  So after a while if he barked it was only two times and then he abruptly stopped.  Dogs learn quickly!

My pug is pretty good about barking now.  I do not mind the occasional bark he and there or to alert us that someone is at the door but the out of control inappropriate barking is pretty rare now.

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.