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Review on Silence barking woes with First Alert Bark Genie Handheld Bark Control Device by Glen Braudrick

Revainrating 5 out of 5

Works for 80% of dogs when used properly and consistently!

I am a canine behavior assessor at a Humane Society animal shelter. We ordered a Bark Genie to help a foster parent with a dog who was having a barking problem and out of curiosity we ordered a second to use in our adoption kennels. 40+ dogs that were usually ridiculously noisy and I swore this device was a real find. However, after further experimentation, it turned out that without constant application and incorporation of the basic concepts of training, it does not work. You can't just point it at a barking dog and expect it to shut up after repeated use; Many of them get used to the noise and no longer suffer from it. By simply using Genie Bark as a redirection tool, when combined with other training methods, you can get the results you want. Some dogs don't respond to sounds at all, regardless of the environment. Some other dogs that respond to noise in a quiet room may ignore the noise when over-excited by noisy environments, the presence of other animals, or being outdoors. Several reactive dogs actually responded to the sound with aggression; Face your trainer, snap/bite your teeth, or face other nearby animals. This occurred in different races and with different temperaments and was quite unexpected but not a common occurrence. We are currently using this device with kennel workers to stop problematic barking and fence fighting (when the dog walks down the kennel aisle by activating when the walking dog attacks the transparent glass doors of the cage or other dogs or when the dogs are barking inside the cage or jump on their own doors). We use the Bark Genie activation in combination with the Quiet command. Most of our dogs now respond fairly well to seeing the device in the hands of a kennel attendant, or simply to the command "quiet". An adoption shelter is now much nicer when constantly being used by new arrivals! Some dogs don't care!

Pros
  • Dogs
Cons
  • Interchangeable