There are three bundles and they look confusingly similar from the outside. Two questions sort them completely. Do you want the calming collar in the box? And do you want the collar acting on its own, or you acting through it?
Answer those and the choice makes itself. Everything below is the detail behind them, including the arithmetic and the cases where you should not buy a bundle at all.
The three, at a glance
| Bundle | Collar | Calming collar? | Price | You save |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-Bark | Automatic spray | No | £40.95 | £26.90 |
| Ultimate | Automatic spray | Yes | £49.95 | £30.85 |
| Remote | Remote-controlled | Yes | £69.95 | £28.85 |
All three include the calming chews and a spare citronella refill. Every bundle's collar already ships with its own can of citronella, so the refill is a second can rather than the first one.
Question one: do you want the calming collar in the box?
Here is the arithmetic, plainly, because you can do it yourself in ten seconds and it would be silly to dress it up.
The Ultimate is £9.00 more than the Anti-Bark and adds a calming collar that costs £12.95 on its own. On pure pounds, the Ultimate wins. That is not a close call and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
So why does the Anti-Bark exist?
Because the Ultimate puts your dog in two collars at the same time. The spray collar, worn for bounded periods rather than round the clock, plus a calming collar worn continuously. Plenty of owners take one look at that and decide they would rather not, and that is a completely reasonable position — particularly for a dog who already dislikes having things fastened round their neck, or a small dog where two collars is genuinely a lot of hardware.
If that is you, buy the Anti-Bark bundle and know that the £9 is buying you a simpler setup, not worse value. If it is not you, the Ultimate is the better buy and it is not particularly close.
One thing we will not do is tell you what the calming collar does. Its own product page does not state what is in it, and we are not prepared to invent a mechanism for something we cannot describe accurately. Treat it as a preference — some owners want everything in the box, some do not — rather than as a claim we are making.
Question two: automatic, or remote?
This is the one that actually matters, and almost nobody explains it. We have written the difference between automatic and remote collars up in full elsewhere, but the short version is this.
Automatic — the collar decides
A sensor detects the bark and fires without you. That is the entire advantage, and it is a big one: it works when you are upstairs, at work, asleep, or simply not watching.
Buy the Ultimate bundle (£49.95) if: the barking you want to stop happens when you are not in the room. The postman. Next door's dog. Someone walking past the window while you are on a call.
Honest limitations: it is spray only, with no tone or vibration to fall back on. It can fire on a slammed door or another dog on a high sensitivity setting, which is why you start on the lowest and work up. And its sensor is calibrated for higher-pitched barking, so a deep-voiced large dog may not set it off reliably — ask us before ordering if that is your dog.
Remote — you decide
You press a button. And it is not spray only — there is tone, vibration with eight levels, and citronella spray with two intensities. That range is the reason to want it as much as the control is.
Buy the Remote bundle (£69.95) if: you are present for the barking and want to train through it. Lead reactivity. Recall. Pre-empting the doorbell by pressing vibration the moment you hear the knock, before your dog has started.
Honest limitation, and it is a hard one: it does nothing while you are out. If the barking that is causing you grief happens in an empty house, this bundle cannot help you no matter how good it is. The handset itself is not waterproof even though the collar is IPX5, so it lives in a pocket rather than clipped to a wet lead.
On the price: the Remote is £20 more than the Ultimate, and £18 of that is the collar itself costing more. You are paying for the hardware, not for the bundling.
If the honest answer is "both"
Take the automatic. You can always choose to be present for training, but you cannot choose to be present for the barking that happens while you are at work.
When a bundle is the wrong buy
Three situations where you should not buy any of these, and we would rather say so now than take the order.
You already own a spray collar. Then a bundle is asking you to buy a second one. Buy the citronella refill and the calming chews separately. It comes to £27.90 and you get the two things you actually lack.
Your dog is distressed at being left alone. Barking, howling, pacing, drooling, scratching at doors, destroying things — specifically when left, and fine when you are home. That is separation-related distress, it is a welfare problem rather than a training one, and none of these bundles is the answer. A spray collar adds something unpleasant to a situation your dog already cannot escape, and it can make things worse. Speak to your vet or a qualified behaviourist first. If you are not sure which kind of barking you have, point a phone camera at the room for an afternoon: barking at triggers starts and stops with events, distress barking starts when you leave and does not settle.
Your dog is a puppy under six months. Foundations first — settling, alternative behaviours, gradual exposure. The remote collar is rated for six months and over in any case, and a young dog barking at everything usually needs a routine rather than a correction.
Turning those three readers away is the point of writing this. If you fall into one of them, we would rather you spent nothing here today.
What the chews are doing in all three
Every bundle includes Calmdogs® Dog Calming Treats, and the reason is the one genuine argument for a bundle over a single collar. A collar works on the behaviour in the moment. The chews work on the state underneath it — a dog who is generally wound up and primed to go off at the next thing.
They are a complementary feed containing chamomile, valerian root, passionflower, L-tryptophan, L-theanine, ashwagandha, ginger and magnesium. Responses vary a great deal between individual dogs, and we have written honestly elsewhere about how the calming treats fit alongside training. They also suit short-term stress points beyond barking, including travel and car journeys.
Calmdogs® Dog Calming Treats are a complementary feed, not a veterinary medicine. They are not intended to treat, cure or prevent any condition. Individual dogs respond differently. If your dog shows ongoing signs of distress, speak to your vet or a qualified behaviour professional.
Last bark
Two collars on the dog or one? Collar acting on its own, or you acting through it? Answer those and you have your bundle.
If the barking happens while you are out, take the automatic. If you are there for it, take the remote and use the tone and vibration rather than going straight to spray. If you would rather your dog wore one collar than two, the Anti-Bark is the reason it exists. And if what you are actually dealing with is a dog who cannot cope with being left, none of this is what you need — that is worth understanding before you spend anything, and it starts with why dogs bark at everything in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some common questions customers may have about this topic.
What is the difference between the three Calmdogs bundles?
All three include the calming chews and a spare citronella refill. The Anti-Bark bundle at 40.95 pounds has the automatic spray collar and no calming collar. The Ultimate at 49.95 pounds is the same plus a calming collar. The Remote bundle at 69.95 pounds has the same four items as the Ultimate but with the remote-controlled collar instead of the automatic one.
Is the Ultimate bundle better value than the Anti-Bark bundle?
On pure arithmetic, yes. The Ultimate costs 9 pounds more and adds a calming collar that costs 12.95 pounds on its own. The reason to choose the Anti-Bark bundle instead is that the Ultimate means your dog wears two collars at once, a spray collar worn for bounded periods rather than round the clock plus a calming collar worn continuously. Some owners would rather not do that, and the 9 pounds buys a simpler setup rather than worse value.
Should I choose the automatic or the remote-controlled bundle?
Choose the automatic if the barking happens when you are not in the room, because the collar acts without you. Choose the remote if you are present for the barking and want to train through it, and note that the remote collar also offers tone and eight levels of vibration alongside spray. A remote collar does nothing while you are out. If the honest answer is both, take the automatic.
When should I not buy a bundle?
Three cases. If you already own a spray collar, buy the citronella refill and the calming chews separately instead. If your dog is distressed at being left alone rather than reacting to specific triggers, none of these bundles is appropriate and you should speak to your vet or a qualified behaviourist. And if your dog is a puppy under six months, training foundations come first, and the remote collar is rated for six months and over in any case.
Do I still need the citronella refill if the collar comes with one?
Both collars ship with a can of citronella, so the refill in each bundle is a spare rather than the first one. It matters because of how these collars fail: when the can runs low the collar keeps triggering but the spray weakens or stops, which is easy to miss for several days. A spare means you can swap it the same evening instead of losing consistency waiting for a delivery.
