Sargisson Rebecca J, Butler Rynae, Elliffe Douglas
School of Psychology, University of Waikato, Private Bag 3105, Hamilton 3240, New Zealand.
ISRN Vet Sci. 2012 Jan 23;2011:759379. doi: 10.5402/2011/759379. Print 2011.
The aim of our study was to investigate whether citronella-spray collars offer a humane alternative to electric-shock collars to reduce the barking of domestic dogs. The Aboistop collar was applied to seven dogs with problematic barking behaviour by the dogs' owners in a series of case studies concurrently run. Vocalisation of the dogs was recorded in the problem context under baseline conditions, inactive collar conditions, and active collar conditions. The Aboistop collar was effective at reducing problem vocalization for only three of seven dogs and appeared to be most effective for dogs whose problem barking had developed more recently. The collar may be more humane than other punishment methods, but it did produce stress reactions which varied in severity across the dogs. Clinical Relevance. In our study, the collar was applied by the dogs' owners in order to test whether the collar would be effective when used by members of the public. While the results here are preliminary, they suggest that the collar may be effective for some dogs, but not for others, when applied by dog owners for the treatment of problem vocalisation. Further research is required to determine whether the collar could be effective when administered by a trained professional.
我们研究的目的是调查香茅喷雾项圈是否能为电击项圈提供一种人道的替代方案，以减少家犬的吠叫。在一系列同时进行的案例研究中，狗主人将Aboistop项圈应用于七只存在吠叫问题行为的狗。在基线条件、项圈未激活条件和项圈激活条件下，在问题情境中记录狗的发声情况。Aboistop项圈仅对七只狗中的三只在减少问题发声方面有效，并且似乎对最近才出现问题吠叫的狗最有效。该项圈可能比其他惩罚方法更人道，但它确实产生了应激反应，不同狗的应激反应严重程度各不相同。临床相关性。在我们的研究中，项圈由狗主人使用，以测试当公众使用时项圈是否有效。虽然这里的结果是初步的，但它们表明，当狗主人使用项圈治疗问题发声时，项圈可能对一些狗有效，但对另一些狗无效。需要进一步研究以确定由训练有素的专业人员使用时项圈是否有效。
