SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Electrical shock / short

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20220510-86408-2147356258. Severity: Injury, Level of care not known. Product: PetSafe BC-103 OM (This is a basic bark collar designed to deliver a series of shocks to the dog's neck when they bark. The sensor between the electrodes needs to be placed in the front center of the dog's neck so it can sense the vibration of the dog's vocal cords to ensure it only shocks when the dog wearing the collar is the actual dog that barked. Because of this, the collar gets placed in the same place every time.). Incident: Petsafe BC-103 OM basic bark collar caused severe open wounds to my dog's neck just from wearing it for a week. My dog will be going to the vet tomorrow to see if stiches will be required to close these wounds. Warnings in the manual are small and insufficient. Had I known this could happen I would have never used this product. Manual is specific as to where the electrodes need to be placed to deliver a shock upon barking. It also has to be snug to get the electrodes to contact the skin through a dog's thick fur. Where the electrodes contacted the skin I found two deep open wounds to our dog's neck when I removed the collar to give her a bath. This collar didn't shock her more than about 4 times so these seem to be contact wounds from the metal electrodes over a week's worth of wearing. Additionally, while I was writing this complaint, I was looking for a serial number and the collar delivered a shock to my hand. No bark or sound of any kind, just shocked me while handling the collar.