Police K-9 Magazine - September/October 2010

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Latigo
Collars And
Leads

■ Above: Canines are social animals, so too much time alone in a kennel can result in boredom and be a reason for excessive barking.

reasonable length of time, you may have a chance. Remember, associate the bark collar with the kennel barking only and try to prevent the dog from making any association with work-related functions.

Second, a dog usually barks in the kennel from boredom or restless energy. It is often an attempt to elicit a response from the handler, as in “I want out,” or “I want to do something,” or “I’m bored.” When you employ a bark collar to suppress that type of barking, you also are suppressing energy and enthusiasm. I would not recommend continuing with the bark collar if you begin to see aberrant behavior away from your home — in training, or at work.

reached two years of age, so some of this may still be the puppy in him. I would imagine you probably can plan on looking forward to this until at least age 2 to 2.5 (sorry).

I am not a fan of bark collars on
police dogs because we
do not want to discour-
age a working dog from
all barking. An e-collar
might be a possibility,
but I don’t see how it
would work if you’re not
there. In order to be
effective, any corrections
or re-directions aimed at
behavior shaping must
be consistent. If you lose the consis-
tency, you will lose the effectiveness.
Again, it could lead to discouraging
the dog from barking altogether. If
your dog ends up wearing the e-collar
at work (never say “never”), you could
be setting yourself up for a rough road
ahead in getting the results you want.
We do not want to confuse this young
dog.

Let’s back up and determine whether something is causing him to bark other than being left alone. Is there some

Corrections aimed at behavior shaping must be consistent.

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Grooming Tools

Ron Gunton replies: I’m not sure I would resort to a bark collar on this dog. For starters, he’s a young Dutch. As I am sure you’re aware, most Dutchies are very high-drive and live to work. Your guy has not even