Unending barking is driving me crazy!!

[Tait & Finn]

Finn will bark at ANYTHING that passes the house or is in his line of vision. Birds, bunnies, lizards, a dog (that is understandable), just someone walking by. He'll spot a bird up in the tree and lose his mind. I end up having to go out in the front yard and chase whatever critter he happens to see.

Do the bark collars work? Any experienced comments would be appreciated. And will they work thru his thick doodle fur? Thanks. My headache is building.

[Jennifer & Truffle]

Hi there.  Yes, we still crate - that's what I'm going to start doing more consistently.  I think once he's experienced step 3 a few times, it'll work - I just haven't been resorting to step 3 enough!  He just turned one and I feel like the barking has really picked up in the last month or so.

[Patti and Bosco]

We put window film on our front windows.  That has worked beautifully.  The window film allows Bosco to stay under threshold and easier to work with during training sessions. 

I also find Doggy Dan's "thank you" protocol works very well.  We also practice "look at that" which gives Bosco a heads up that something he usually reacts to is coming up.  Kikopup has videos out on youtube that address barking under various circumstances and a "check it out" video which works really well with Bosco when he encounters something scary. 

Here is a training device that uses both a collar and positive reinforcement (the device rewards quiet behavior).  http://www.petexpertise.com/dog-training-aids/autotrainer-stop-bark...

[Dawn Ross]

I resorted to the bark collar with my Aussie mix Pierson after our housemates had a baby. His barking was very disruptive, just like your Finn's. It worked like a miracle. It doesn't work through the fur so I had to cut away his fur on his neck where his bark collar prongs touch.

To be honest, even though the bark collar worked like a miracle, I felt bad about using it. The first few times Pierson braved barking, it really hurt. It says it is not supposed to hurt, but by his reaction it obviously hurt. They also say that a dog learns not to bark with it on. That is true for the most part. The collar I got him works in stages so the first shock is a warning and doesn't hurt. So he's learned to bark just once instead of several times.

In the long run, the bark collar is supposed to teach him not to bark. But after a couple months of him wearing it, I took it off and his bad habits of barking at every little thing picked up again. And so he's back to wearing the bark collar.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

We use e-collars on our dogs for barking.  I wish I had done it years ago when the first began.  We can curb barking when we are with them, but when we aren't there . . . .   When we go camping in our RV our guys will bark at campers setting up their camps or walking by etc, so we finally got them collars. The dogs would get each other all excited with the barking and soon we had a bark party going. We used the collars when we left the RV.   The collars worked so well, that we seldom need them for this purpose any more.  What we found is that the collar gives a reminder buzz if the dog barks, so he stops.  What we have found is that one of our doodles, really settles down just by wearing the collar.  The other one will give two barks and stop.  A few months ago we got new neighbors with dogs they do not monitor.  We are using the collars some at home, to help our dogs NOT bark in reply.  It isn't perfect but it is helping.  We don't leave them on when we aren't home in this setting. We are hoping some of the annoying barking their dogs do with ours returning it, might get them to rethink their training practices - so far it hasn't worked.