Orinskye, to answer your question about the citronella collar, it is the most effective product, according to Cornell Univ., for barky dogs. The citronella burst happens only when there is enough throat vibration to set off a mechanism which mists the dog. The collar is effective for barking, but the owner cannot control the mist for other misbehaviors, as one can with vibrating or other collars, which have handheld remotes or some other mechanism for alerting the dog.
The spray bottle method works well for barking too -- I've used it on all my dogs in the past except Dean. Only one of our dogs now is a barker, and she was abused -- came from a shelter -- and we try to avoid ALL forms of negative stuff with her. She just got too anxious about the spray bottle though, so we tried a 'quiet' command while sitting with her (less likely to bark if your sitting next to them or petting them.) This works okay, but we're still trying to overcome her totally irrational fear of the UPS guy. She shows special disdain for men in uniform with boxes, packages, bug spray containers, tool bags, etc. Training has been super difficult with her (five years and she's much much better) and she will sometimes only follow commands for treats inside the house. (I.e., she never follows the down command outside).
Average price range on the collar is $65 up. Widely available. Fiance's sister used vibrating collar on her lab, but it was not effective. The dog just tried to look down at her neck. That was $40. BTW, shock collars are totally ineffective on dogs that have been abused or were trained based on fear. We never use the collar on Lucy because of this and have to find real friendly, Pavlovian ways to train her.
Wanted to let this thread cool before I made another post ....
