Can we use an electronic collar to teach our dogs to be quiet in their crates?

Hi Cindy,



Your staff has been very helpful with muzzles. They also referred me to you for help with electronic collars. We have very specific situation and need your help chosing the right product.



Since our dogs spend much more time in their crates now and cannot be left loose in the house when we are gone anymore, they started barking and whining in crates which makes our life living hell. We got a 3rd pup recently - a 8mo Husky mix. He does not bark mostly but "speaks" and howls. Connie and Suzie learned the trick from him. They can produce everything from a very high-pitched whine to a proper wolf howl (all 3 of them) to a good deep barking, heard for blocks around. Connie usually starts the pandemonium. We do not have anywhere to put them where nobody could hear them and I have been training them to be "quiet" for some time. It works when I am in the room to give the command - they don't even bark at the delivery people anymore, you could see them controlling themselves - but it could get very ugly very fast when they are left alone. I heard bark collars do not work against whining. Perhaps we could use one of the electronic training collars to train them not to be vocal when left in crates? Which model(s) would work the best in our situation? In addition, if we do get an e-collar(s) we might be able to use them for obedience training as well. Do we get just one collar and use it on Connie or whoever initiates it or do we get 3 collars for everybody? We'd only be able to use 1 collar at a time for obedience training, I guess, because we train them separately. In addition, the new pup Monty is an escape artist and tries to get out of the crate all the time and/or destroys his bedding in the process. Could an e-collar help with this as well?



Note: We live in a typical Californian 2 level wood-frame townhouse (2x4s and drywall, hardwood floors, I do not think there is any metal other than screws in the walls) and would like the collar to work when we are either upstairs or outside. The idea is to put them in crates, go out, wait till they start howling and zap whoever starts first (or everybody who does, if we get 3 collars, OR get a 2-dog model and take one of the dogs outside with us and zap the other 2?).



Would you recommend electronic collar(s) in this situation at all or do we have to stick with crate training in hopes the barking will go away before the nighbors get mad at us? They are very nice and patient people and we hate to do this to them.



Thank you very much for your help. The D&A DVD is great and very practical. We have been following the groundwork routine + advice from the D&A DVD (no toys or anything they might fight about is freely accessible, corrections for aggressive behavior, crates and leadership routine) and it seems to be working.



Sincerely,
Anastasia