Nuisance barking problem solved?

We have a couple of barkers in our house. It can be quite annoying, especially at 5:00 AM when a certain JRT decides he's up for the day and everyone else should be too. I kept complaining about it... so much that Chris finally decided to do something about it. Introducing the Anti-Bark citronella spray bark collar by Multivet.

This bark collar is completely painless, humane (it is SPCA approved!) and safe without any kind of side effects. It isn't one of those ones that will "shock" or "jolt" the dog when they bark. Instead, if they bark while wearing the collar, a spray of citronella comes out of the collar and sprays upward towards their face (but not in the eyes). More than anything it startles the dog and overloads their sense of smell (their strongest sense) and soon they realize that the barking is what makes the spray blast.





We tried it out on the dogs last night. We first put the collar on Al, but he wasn't really barking so it didn't really work very well. We then put the collar on Mrka and I went outside and rang the doorbell. All of the dogs bark when the doorbell is rung. When she barked, the citronella sprayed and startled her. It was really funny, actually. She looked like "WTF was that???" It only took about two times before she associated the barking with the spray. We continued to ring the doorbell and although she was VERY alert, she didn't bark.

We also put the collar on Bauer who had a similar reaction. Maybe we've finally solved the barking problem in our house?!?!

Right now, the plan is to only have it on them when we are home so we can use it as a training device...