A training question for dog owners

[T.G]

I rue the things. The thought of zapping my best bud like that, needless to say, I've never used one on any of the dogs I've had in the past.

Now, such being said, a friend of mine ended up having to use them after his third written warning and second fine, broke down and got them for his dogs to curb a excessive barking problem. It worked and didn't take much time at all, and a few months after the collars were "retired" the dogs decided they wanted to give a concert for no particular reason that he could tell one afternoon, so he just walked outside with the collars and held them up for the dogs to see at which point they give that "Uh-oh" look coupled with a wimper and stopped.

The ones that really suck are the invisible fence ones - they zap the dog going both directions. So if the dog leaves, it gets zapped when it tries to come back, so it serves as a nice deterrent to a dog returning home. Sounds like you have a real fence that is capable of containing the dog though, so that's a non-issue.

Besides the zapping part, the problem is that they are indiscriminate. My friend with the barking dogs, now the dogs don't want to bark at all. Not even to alert him that there might be a problem. How is the collar going to teach your dog "Don't charge the fence when another dog is there, BUT, it's still your perimeter to protect"