My my, how shocking

Fish have to swim. Birds have to fly. Dogs have to bark. Unless they live in an apartment building that is. Thats right, our recent move brought us to a nice ground floor apartment. The dog, who for the purposes of this blog shall be called Flexxo, likes to bark. He hears a noise and he wants to bark to tell us about it. He sees a person and he barks to say hello. He sees a tree and he barks in recognition (get it? a tree has bark).
Anyway, apparently this is frowned upon in an apartment building so we had to take steps to prevent Flexxo's barking. We tried beating him unmercifully when he barked but that just made my arm tired. We considered removing his vocal cords but then we'd lose the tenor in our a capella group. Also the surgery is really expensive unless you want to forego things like anaesthetic and clean instruments. So we were left with only one choice - an anti-barking collar.
Basically, it works by sensing the vibrations in his vocal chords and giving him a little static shock. I tested it on myself before hooking him up. When I woke up several hours later, I put in a smaller battery and tried again. This time I got a little jolt that made me question if I wanted to bark but didnt hurt. So we strapped it on the little monkey dog and let him loose on the world. He let out a couple barks and stopped abruptly with a confused look plastered on his adorable face.
After nearly a week with the collar (or less, I have trouble telling time) its been pretty effective. He hasnt stoped barking altogether, but its been cut to about 10% of former bark volume. Thats a big difference for Flexxo. Now when he hears somebody come in the building he gives a harumph bark and stops. He gives the door a quizzical look and gives us a confused one. Then he moves on with his life.
Yes, there is the constant guilt of knowing that my beloved Flexxo is getting shocked just for being himself, but these are the sacrifices we have to make. Perhaps in the spirit of fairness and solidarity I will get a collar for myself. I'm sure my good lady wife would appreciate a few moments of silence from me. Either that or I will become addicted to the electricity and become some sort of super-villian. You know, this is suddenly seeming like a really great idea.