ScruffyMax

I think I will just go ahead and order one of the electronic shock collars:) From a supplier within Australia that is!

Hi, I just discovered this forum a few days ago and have spent hours reading through lots of the posts! There seem to be a lot of knowledgeable people out there so I thought I would ask for some advice on my own issue. My husband and I have 2 dogs, Max and Scruffy, and they are both desexed. Max is a 2 year old fox terrier cross jack russell who we got from the RSPCA when he was about 4 months old (previous owners "didn't have time for him"). Max is generally a great dog, very eager to please, always sits when he wants something, waits for us to go through doors first etc. Max's only real "problem" is howling when we're not home (have never heard him do this but neighbours have told us about it). He's also quite fearful - tried spraying them with water when they were naughty but he gets so petrified he hides under the bed whenever he so much as sees the spray bottle now. Scruffy is also a 2 year old foxy cross who we got when he was a year old. We came by him when a friend of a friend of a friend took him to a shelter to get him away from a cruel owner. Scruffy is submissive to Max (let's Max have the best food, almost always lets Max get the ball when we are playing fetch), but isn't as submissive to us as Max is (needs to be reminded to let us go through doors first, always pulls on the lead when we are walking, takes a few seconds to sit when asked). Scruffy has a very affectionate nature and everyone who meets him loves him. Scruffy's "problem" is his barking. It's not really a problem when we are at home, although saying that he does run outside and bark when he hears a noise, and will also bark at people walking along the street - but these aren't really a problem because we can easily stop him by calling him inside or distracting him (get him to sit, roll over etc). None of these things are a problem to us(!) but we have had an anonymous letter from a very fed up neighbour complaining about how noisy our dogs are. We walk them every morning and leave kongs and other chewy things for them but I guess it is not enough. We are out of the house from 7.30am to 5.30pm weekdays and are probably out an average of 2 evenings per week. We've had noisy neighbours in the past and know how annoying and intrusive it can be so we don't want to be the annoying neighbours. I have tried a citronella collar on Scruffy which worked for a while but now he just ignores it. I decided to get one of the "zapping" collars and ordered one on ebay but it was confiscated by customs. When we spoke to customs they recommended bark busters but from looking on this forum the feedback about them isn't very positive. We're in Brisbane and I've also emailed Clear training school but haven't heard back from them (and have since seen some bad feedback about them on here). Can someone suggest an appropriate trainer in Brisbane who can help us to teach our dogs not to bark and howl? Or anything we can do? I'm stumped about how to control their behaviour when we're not there.