DeBarking Surgery or Soft Bark

My thoughts on bark softening are the following-
Would I bark soften my dog? Probably not. In my current situation with one Sheltie, there is very little barking indoors. However, if I were to get a second Sheltie and they decided to create a Sheltie chorus of barking that bothered my neighbors, I would probably consider it as a last resort.
Do I care if people get their dogs bark softened? Nope, as long as it was done by a vet and not some cruel, inhumane way.

I will admit I have heard some dogs with very raspy, pitiful sounding barks and I kinda feel bad to them. It's like listening to somebody who's "lost their voice" from a cold. It just sounds like it hurts to bark. But I know that is not the case.
 
EJHUNTL said:
I have very sensitive hearing.
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I do too- I have misophonia. Basically certain sounds can drive me crazy. Most of the time people just tune them out, but I have a really hard time doing that. Luckily barking is one sound I can usually tune out, except for really high pitched, whiny barks.
 
Jess041 said:
I do too- I have misophonia. Basically certain sounds can drive me crazy. Most of the time people just tune them out, but I have a really hard time doing that. Luckily barking is one sound I can usually tune out, except for really high pitched, whiny barks.
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I never heard that word before - just googled it. I wouldn't say I have that, except that I really dislike the sound of people chewing, and repetitive stuff also drives me nuts. The place we rented while we were building always had a background hum that just about drove me nuts and kept me awake at night. Hubby never ever heard it. One day I was vacuuming and noticed something plugged into a lot of the electrical outlets. They were some sort of low frequency sound generator to ward off rodents. Pulled them all out ( about a dozen) and suddenly I had real silence. Problem fixed. Oddly enough nature sounds don't do it, crickets, cicadas ( they get really loud at times) or the whippoorwill and his nightly serenade do not bother me in the least.

I could not take out of control barking - yet I chose shelties to fall in love with.
 
I got Indy when he was 10 months old. He was debarked.

Unfortunately, his bark grew back. He is now 6 years and barks as loud as any.

This is my opinion:

If you choose a Sheltie, you have to understand that they are barkers. So my going in position is that, no, you don't debark or soften. You do your best to train.

That being said, if you find yourself with a untrainable barker and you are faced with either giving your dog up or eviction notices, then yes, I would consider debark

Its a tough call.
 
Here's my two cents: Brooke came to us bark softened, as her breeder has done with all the dogs she has kept. Brooke's "holes" must have closed up somewhat as her breeder said she got louder as time went on. She is the biggest barker we've had and I have to say I'm very glad it isn't as loud and shrill as it could be.

I've worked hard on training Asta and Ally but certain things just send them off no matter what. And now with 3, someone's always got something to say!! :lol:
Our friends with 9 rescue Collies have had the surgery done on almost all of them. They can bark as much as they want, so they sure don't seem to know the difference. Each dog's bark is slightly different sounding.
 
All three of mine are de-barked, for the reasons mentioned before--they were raised and shown by a breeder who had multiple Shelties in residence and full-volume barking would be impossible to live with. It seems to me that the results vary--one is pretty loud, one has a low, harsh, whispery bark, and one sounds like a hamster. None of the faintest idea that there is anything different about their "voices," and all express themselves freely and happily.
 
I will say that it is possible to have a quiet pack, indoors at least, that hasn't been debarked. The breeder I got my last sheltie ( the one before Hanna) from had at least 8 dogs inside her house when I came by - not a single one barked when I rang the doorbell or at any time the whole half hour we were there. None of them jumped up on me either - they all came by to say hello very politely. I have no idea how she accomplished that other than she must have been some kind of sheltie whisperer. :lol:
 
Debarked

My Sheltie, Whisper, was de-barked when she came to us. To this day, she has hacking problems that our vet attributes to the surgery. But her bark has come back over time, and we love to hear her whiskey tenor.

Barking is a Sheltie joy, but if it's a nuisance that threatens someone's permanent place in the home, I suppose some will choose to de-bark.

As a companion guardian, I'm definitely not a fan of the procedure.
 
Keep OT

To ensure this thread does not go off topic, please start another thread or open a previous one if you wish to debate merits of debarking. It's a topic that people tend to have a lot to say about and will completely swamp the OP. Instead can we keep the discussion to people's experience with debarking rather than their opinion.
 
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