I have five dogs. Yup. Five. Luckily I live in the middle of nowhere so the only ones annoyed by these dogs barking are the nearby sheep and cows. And me. It drives me insane. A tractor drives past. Bark bark. A cat enters the garden, Bark bark. The dishwasher beeps that its finished its cycle. Bark. Radio 2 plays Kate Bush. Bark. The phone rings. Bark.
It doesn’t end. I have no idea how these dogs (not all of them) don’t have sore throats. If it’s a particularly busy day with deliveries they can bark from morning until evening, then as the owls begin to hoot, they start all over again.
I thank my lucky stars that we don’t have neighbours close by as we’d be very unpopular by now. Something must be done.
This is why I’m looking into humane ways to stop dogs barking. On another dog, many moons ago, I tried an electric boundary. This dog, Banana, didn’t bark incessantly, this dog would escape and so we needed something to keep him in. A new fence was out of our budget as it needed to cover an entire acre. In rides the electric shock collar and wire. The wire is placed along the perimeter then plugged in. The dog wears a collar. If the dog goes near the perimeter he receives a small electric shock. This is supposed to deter him from going any further.
Well, Banana was different. He didn’t go further, that’s for sure, but he did sit on the wire and jumped every 3 seconds as it gave him a shock. He didn’t think to move backwards or away. He just stayed there for as long as I could bear until I unplugged it and decided another option was required.
It seemed cruel, inhumane and it didn’t work at all.
I thought the only option, when looking for barking solutions, was a collar that delivered a similar shock. I was wrong. The Woof Whisperer have a collar that operates on sound. The reviews look amazing and we’re going to try it to see if it works.
We will report back in a week.
