Some devices reach 300 feet, letting anyone aim ultrasonic pulses at a dog that isn't theirs.

A manual trigger lets a neighbor punish a dog at will, whether or not she's even barking.

Owners have no way to connect a dog's new anxiety to a stranger's remote control.

Anxious, disabled, and very young or old dogs are least equipped to withstand this.

In my last post, I made the case against using ultrasonic bark deterrents on your own dog. This post focuses on another facet of ultrasonic device use—one that is even more insidious, and for which the devices are perfectly designed: silencing a dog that isn't yours, without that dog's owner ever knowing it happened.

Start with the design itself. A remote bark deterrent doesn't require you to own, train, or even like the dog it's punishing. It just needs to be within range. The Dog Silencer MAX, one of the more sensitive units on the market, claims to detect barking from 75 feet and to project its ultrasonic pulse up to 300 feet with a clear line of sight. That's not a device built to correct a dog in your living room. That's a device built to reach across a yard, over a fence, and into a house you've never been inside.

Then there's the handheld remote. Most of these units also ship with a manual trigger — a button you press whenever you hear a bark, sending the pulse regardless of whether the device's own microphone detected anything. In principle, this........

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