No, we won't do that!

[Parrothead]

Background: The kennel I work at has an in-house grooming department. Roughly half of their clients are dogs/cats on their way home, the rest are brought in in the morning, and go home when they're done. (I'm probably wrong on the percentages, but you get the gist.)

We had a lady call in, saying that her dogs were barking and she was getting a shock collar for them. she then wanted to know if we would shave a patch on her dog's necks where the prongs would go.

Manager (who took the call) told her a (slightly) politer version of "not a chance in hell."

[rerant]

Prongs!? I don't know a lot about shock collars but I didn't think they required prongs to be put into the dogs.

My friend told me about how her dad put a sock collar on their dog. I told her it was sick and unnecessary.

Later she told me that her and her sisters tried the shock collar on (which as you can see leads me to question the prongs) and she said when she made any noise at all it would give her such a shock she could barely breathe.

No more shock collar for the dog after that.

[Luna Baby]

There are prongs on them, at least on the one I used with my underground fence. They are there to get the "signal shock" to the tissue under the hair and there are different sized prongs for the animals with differing hair lengths-short prongs for short haired dogs and long prongs for the ones with long hair.

Now, before I get flamed, I don't use the underground fence and accompanying collar anymore. I simply know how they work.

[ArcticChicken]

When I was little, we had an invisible fence for our dog. Which he completely ignored.
Now why the hell mom was willing to let the dog run around our yard when we weren't home, I'll never understand.
The point is the tech who did the install put the collar on too tight, and because Willow would ignore the shock and run around over the fence, the probes burned holes in his neck. Willow recovered fine, but yea gods!
This is why all my future dogs will be clicker trained.

[Evil Queen]

We had one similar for our dog, but it was for an electric fence. Lasted less then three days. We put it on her on the lowest setting and it kept shocker to the point of tears. The dog would lay on the porch crying. Mom and Dad took it off and reset the fence. We were walking around the front of the property, KC dog refused to get off the porch.

I asked Dad if it really hurt her that much and he said no, here. And handed over the collar. I got a shock that was so strong both arms were numb for the rest of the day and I was bawling. RetailWorkhorse was handed the collar and nothing happened. Dad figured it was broken and I think he threw the whole mess away.

Never again did we use those things. I'd rather put a dog on a tie out.

[Polenicus]

I never had a shock collar for any of our animals, but at one point my mother got the idea of getting a SONIC collar for our Schnauzer, to curb his barking. He would basically go nuts whenever he saw ANYTHING bark-worthy, and it took forever to get him to calm down again.

So she put this collar on him, with the black box with the little sound-detector unit in it, and the speaker that would emit the high-pitched tone supposedly only dogs could hear. The theory went the dog would bark, the tone would hurt their ears (But otherwise cause no real damage) and encourage them not to bark.

Yeah, right. Several problems. First off, the tone was NOT audible only to dogs. We could hear it just fine. Secondly, if it was painful, then Isaac (Our schnauzer) was a masochist.

Now, I will frequently tell people Isaac was not a smart dog, but that's not exactly true. He WAS a smart dog. Clever, really. However, he applied his intelligence in proportion to his level of interest. Learnng commands? Not interested. Learning to stay in the comfy spot we set up for him in the car, rather than crawl all around and get stuck behind the luggage? Not interested. Collaborating with the cat to open the breadbox and dump an entire loaf of bread on the floor, so he could rip it open and they could share the loafy treat? Yeah, big brainpower there.

Anyway, shortly after we put on the collar, Isaac barked. And, as it was supposed to, the collar emitted it's tone.

His ears shot up, and his head cocked to the side, his face suddenly filled with about as much interest as I have seen from that dog. I could tell we had his FULL attention, and had high hopes that this would result in him learning to curb the barking a little.

He was silent a bit, then experimentally barked again. Again the tone, and again his ears shot up, and he cocked his head, concentrating.

And then he went BERSERK.

We had just given him a new TOY. One he could play with just by doing his favourite thing: Barking. One that drove the poodle in the house NUTS, which was an added bonus. And what's better, it made NOISE. We had just given the canine equivalent of a 7 year old a toy that makes noise, with fully charged batteries.

Whups.

We had to chase him down to get the collar off him, all the while he's scampering about... BARK!-EEEEEEEEE... BARK!-EEEEEEEEE... BARK!-EEEEEEEE

We finally got it off him, and removed the batteries so it could trouble us no more. And that was the last time we used any device of that sort.

[Andara Bledin]

We never used any of those fancy collars on our dog. He was a jumper, and he had no problem scrambling right over the fence around the back of the property.

So, my mom & dad put up an electric fence. Basically, a wire with current in it that ran around the upper periphery of the fence. I touched it once, and I can assure you it was an experience I will never forget. It did stop him from getting out of the yard. And it was never actually turned on past the first week, either.

^-.-^

[Sliceanddice]

... noe id rather to you know get the ball heres a treat training.... but to take part.
Monk.
The shock collar as used for a bomb detenator.
So they are the bad.

[MiloMorai]

First off, on the prongs on the no bark collars, they are ROUNDED not sharp. If used wrong they will hurt the dog though and I've never seen one work like they say.

Secondly on the fence with the shock collar. My friend had a dog that just loved to go visit all over town and get him a nice hefty ticket (2nd or 3rd time and OWNER actually gets jail time). So happy fun-time installing the perimeter wire. put collar on dog.....dog goes near and bam! moves back. O.K. we're good. check on him and ........WTF???!!!?? Where is he?? Go and find him before gets picked up and ticket. WTH?? Batteries are dead. Replace and secretly watch the dog. He moves slowly to the perimeter and about 5 feet away he stops and just sits. Calmly go out and see what he's doing. The collar is emitting a low frequency sound. Think about it a second.

The dog is DRAINING THE BATTERIES SO IT CANNOT SHOCK HIM!!!!!!

Why can't he be this smart in a good and useful way?

[Bramblerose]

I never had a shock collar for any of our animals, but at one point my mother got the idea of getting a SONIC collar for our Schnauzer, to curb his barking. He would basically go nuts whenever he saw ANYTHING bark-worthy, and it took forever to get him to calm down again.

Yeah, I heard about a collar that would spritz citronella for a bark. Turns out the dog in question figured it out and stopped unnecessary barking, but his yard-mate wouldd run up, bark loudly at the collar, and run off, leaving teh first dog to be citronella'd.

And they say dogs have no personality!

[Daisy]

He was silent a bit, then experimentally barked again. Again the tone, and again his ears shot up, and he cocked his head, concentrating.

And then he went BERSERK.

We had just given him a new TOY.

That has got to be the funniest thing I have ever heard. The mental picture alone is PRICELESS!

[AriRashkae]

Yeah, I heard about a collar that would spritz citronella for a bark. Turns out the dog in question figured it out and stopped unnecessary barking, but his yard-mate wouldd run up, bark loudly at the collar, and run off, leaving teh first dog to be citronella'd.

And they say dogs have no personality!

Sounds like something my husband and I would do to each other!

Any animal that can be trained is capable of problem solving. We have had at various times: cats (do not challenge them They will win eventually), dogs (not quite so persistent), pigs (they will figure out how to get what they want), horses (lazy SOBs ), and cows (I no longer underestimate them. They want it badly enough, they will get it).

So, which species is the dumb animal again?

[Sliceanddice]

on animal channel they had this beagle, she like to steal food, and weighed about 60 pounds, They hid the food and got a Senser set up tso when she went close to the counter a loud annoying and bad noise would sound.

two weeks later the beagle started going for the trash and to open the fridge door...

funniest thing on earth