Electronic dog fences?

[Dairy King]

Anybody have em? Do they work? I want my dog to roam the yard free, but I dont want a fence, and I hate pens and chains. And I want to keep them all off the road. []How do they work?

[cutter81]

Dairy King, I asked this question once and got good reply's on the Sporting Dogs forum. Try posting it there.

[PABowhntr]

I don't have one myself but several other folks in my neighborhood decided to put them up. They seem to work well enough as I have yet to see one of the dogs running loose in the neighborhood. Do you mind having those little flags all over your yard though?

[Dairy King]

Good idea cutter. Thanks. I never thought of that.

PA. Doesnt really matter to me. They don't have to stay up long, do they?

[PAHUNTER21]

I have one for my black lab. It's currently inoperable due to the utility company cutting the underground wire in the middle of the yard somewhere.

Anyhow... They are great!!!!!!! It takes a little while to teach the dog where his boundries are, but once they are trained, they DO NOT cross the line.

Basically what you do is
-Lay wire
-Set up flags at the edge of the radio feild
-[on leash] Train dog w/ shock collar (Rubber dummy prongs to prevent shock) to run back in yard once he hears the warning beeps. Offer LOTS of praise.
-[on leash] Put regular prongs on collar. Take dog to edge of flags. Collar will start beeping. Let dog get shocked. Offer LOTS of praise.
-[on leash] Work dog around paremiter until he reailizes that beep = = shock. LOTS of praise for going back into the "safe zone". Remove half of the flags (every other one) after one week of training in this stage. Remove half of the ones left a week after, then remove all flags in 3rd week. This can coincide with the next step as well.
-[off leash] Let dog wonder by himself, if he gets near field, he will get shocked. Should run back into yard.

Please note that this takes a couple weeks to complete. but once finished, you really shouldn't need to turn on the fence unless your pup needs a constant reminder.

If you want more technical instructions, let me know.

BTW, Nitro's (my lab) fence hasn't worked for over 6 months and he hasn't even thought of crossing that parimeter. Much cheaper solution than a chainlink fence. Try $300 for 1+ acres compared to $5000 1/4 acre of chainlink.

[PAHUNTER21]

BTW, I'm not sure why this was moved to the Sporting Dog section of the site. As far as I know, this is a general topic that has nothing to do with a sporting dog. IMO, it should be put back on the Offseason forum.

[Dairy King]

PA21: I asked Justin to do it for me. I figured it would get more response here since this is the dog section.

[datamax]

PAHUNTER21

I have 2 dogs, a Welse Corgi and an Austrailian Shepherd. the Corgi is about 5 years old, the Aussie going on 1 1/2.

We have 5 acres, mostly wooded, everyone around here has the same. They both bark at anything/anyone strange, and we've lived here for about 4 months. The Aussie has always had the herding instincts to nip and herd and she's a high strung dog.

Anyway, yesterday I talked with my neighbor who walks every morning at 7 am. The past 3 mornings that Aussie took to the road after him, and attempted to slip in from the rear and bite him. He said he's worked postal routes and knows a dog trying to bite - this dog tried to. She's never shown THAT much agressiong towards anyone. Last night I tied her up - didn't release her until after the guys morning walk.

During the day - no problems because my kids are around the house, my wife etc etc. They stay close. Late nights and mornings, we're thinking she gets bored and has figured out that chasing people on the road is a fun thing to do [:@]Kendall said he fired a shot over her head - and would have killed her if he hadn't known me and was giving her a last chance. I agreed with him - I will NOT have a biting dog.

So anyway - would a fence like this keep her off the road ? Say I fenced it so theres a barrier of 50 yards off the road where she can approach to there and no further ? Would she learn to never go through that barrier ? Are the shocks that strong as to keep them from doing that ?

She is very intelligent, and remembers commands. She's very teachable. I'm trying to find ways to keep from me having to kill her - which I will do if she ever bites

[JsmesB67]

ORIGINAL: datamax

PAHUNTER21

So anyway - would a fence like this keep her off the road ? Say I fenced it so theres a barrier of 50 yards off the road where she can approach to there and no further ? Would she learn to never go through that barrier ? Are the shocks that strong as to keep them from doing that ?

You bet it would. I've got a 7 month old Vizsla who is as high strung as they come and I have people walking dogs 5' off of the perimeter and he won't cross. I trained him on it from 12 weeks old though. It might take you a little longer to establish the boundaries with an older dog. I highly recommend the Canine Fence company. A lifetime of batteries still won't equal; what a chainlink fence woulds have cosat me.

[PAHUNTER21]

We have a fence from Innotek (bought from Cabelas).

Let me just give you a visual of how strong the shock is.... (Note: at this time it was only set on 1/2 power)

When I was testing where the parimeter of the fence was, I was holding the collar with two hands and forgot to change the prongs to the rubber ones. Somehow I had made contact with each prong when I crossed the parimeter. It felt like two 300lb guys standing on each side of me and punching me in the shoulders at the same time. It hit me hard, really hard.

Now, Let me just tell you one thing. At the beginning, the dog got through the barrier once, to no fault of his own. It was poor placement of the wire on my part.

If you get one, you'll see how well the shock correction works for your dog (They probably won't get corrected (shocked) more than 5 times before they learn). On full power it should work for any size dog as long as the prongs are making contact with the dogs neck.