Fencing vs. tie out for a dog

If your dog is smart enough, he will learn that invisible fencing only hurts for an instant. I have seen many, many dogs discover that running with a full head of steam at the fence-line only results in a shock for a brief second and then - FREEDOM. I would do a great deal of research and talk with many owners before investing in such a concept.

donsgal

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Life is what happens while you are making other plans. (John Lennon)

Hey RedneckPete-Would like to know what invisible fence system you use on what type of dogs. Tried E-mailing you, but said you are not accepting e-mails. I have a lab and a dalmation who are usually well behaved and stay in the yard, however if I take them down to the barn with me and get involved in chores they may decide it is time to wander. We have 45 acres but also have neighbors with livestock who will shoot first ask later. I would love to know about a GOOD fence and hope it won't cost too much $$. I would like to fence about 10 acres. Have tried a wire 5ft fence but the lab jumps out. Have used a shock collar on the Dalmation as he was a cat killer when we got him from the SPCA, and it worked great for him only a few real shocks then the warning beep was enough. he is afraid of the horses and I don't think he would chase deer or cattle, but chickens and strange cats? probably.The lab may be a hard customer, she feels no pain, she would not chase ANYTHING but, I don't want to take the chance of her being shot.She needs to run daily,or else she is just a spaz, even with walks and playtime daily.I think an invisible fence might be the thing. Thanks

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Niki

Crazi niki
Read my post and Dons gal post a couple ahead of this before you invest in a invisable fence. Won't work for many dogs.

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away

WVPEACH (paula)

Mike, you're right!

Different breeds and different dogs will prefer different methods of confinement, no matter what we people think of it. Huskies adore being able to see what's going on. Want a safely confined Husky? Keep it on a tether. They are unhappy in a fence (even chain link) and cannot be trusted to be loose (I don't care if you think your dog can be trusted, the breed is notorious for wandering.)

Underground fences only work with dogs who's concentration can handle two things at once. Many dogs have such a high prey drive that the small jolt isn't going to phase them.

Yes, some folks neglect their tethered dogs. But some nelgect their house dogs, too. I'd rather see a happily tethered dog than an abused house dog any day.

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Mustang Diaries

"It's called a lance...hellooo!"

If you can't supervise what the dog is doing you must fence or teather, its the only responsible thing to do. I prefer a fenced area to a tether but it is easier for a dog to escape a fence. The worst thing about teathers (or invisible fences) is that your dog can't (or feels he can't) escape another dog or threatning animal that comes near them. not a problem if you have the type of dog that will see a dog or coyote attacking them as a chance to play "kill the stupid one off" but if you have feral packs in your area your dog can get killed.

For the first couple of months after we moved into our last house our dogs had to be tied out to do their business because we couldn't raise a fence intill the thaw. One night I saw eight pairs of yellow eyes reflecting back from the perimiter of the tie out area fortunatly our big male was out, he just stared back and puffed out his ruff didn't even growl and you could hear the intruders turn and move away through the field. One of the scariest things I have ever seen my dog do. I was out breaking that frozen ground within a week to get the fence up.

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http://www.WildhausKennels.com breeders of Top Quality German Shepherd dogs Ideal for Schutzhund dog sport as well as Police Service Work and SAR.

I am sorry for the delay. I wasn’t following this tread and didn’t realize I couldn’t get E-mail for these forums.

Concerning the invisible fencing:

I use the Pet Safe brand. Your key to success is to use the stubborn dog receiver. The receiver is the part that goes on your dog’s collar and corrects your dog. If you have a larger dog (as in bigger then a lap dog) you will very likely need the stubborn dog collar on your dog. Use the owner’s manual for the collar to raise the correction level to 5 (the highest setting) AS SOON as you leave your dog unsupervised. Training the dog with the collar set to this level is a bit nasty, as the system will nick the dog while they are learning. If you are there to correct the dog, the collar doesn’t need to be as intense. Once the dog knows what behavior is expected my sympathy for the dog erodes quickly. When you leave the dog alone, it WILL test the fence and the stronger the initial correction, the more likely they will learn to respect the fence quickly. I have “fixed” very stubborn dogs that had learned to push through shock zone by putting two stubborn dog collars on the dog at once. If your dog has not spent six months running through the boundary while you think about doing something this will not be required, but dogs that have been trained to challenge the fence can be “fixed” that way.

Please don’t tell me your dog is the sole dog in the world that can’t be trained to respect this fence. If your dog doesn’t respect it, it’s because the correction was not strong enough. If you are serious about giving your dog the freedom this fence can offer, do what it takes to train your dog. Shave it’s neck if need be, and tighten the collar to ensure good contact with it’s neck, at least until the dog learns it can’t beat the system.

Don’t waste your money on the manufacturer’s wire. Go to any electrical supply store and buy a spool of 16-gauge stranded wire and use that. It is more durable, cheaper and much easier to install.

I install the wire using a hook I built for this purpose. I pull this hook with a compact excavator, but I’m sure it could be pulled with many kinds of machinery. I put the wire in about 6” deep, and can completely wire a 5-15 acre property in a day.

Following is a picture of the hook I use:

Pete

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...e/100_1806.jpg

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...e/100_1807.jpg

I completely agree with your comments regarding a tethered dog, in that they are unable to defend themselves. Invisible fenced dogs exhibit a completely different behavior.

All my customers are rural property owners, (I don’t do urban properties – my equipment isn’t suited for that type of install) and usually have larger dogs. Once these dogs know the system, they feel very secure inside it’s boundaries and it truly becomes their territory. My customer’s dogs and mine have had showdowns with packs of coyotes and wild dogs at the “invisible” fence line. The dog acts very aggressive to intruders, but will not venture outside of its fenced area to challenge the intruders. The coyotes will not challenge a snarling barking dog acting unlike any dog they have ever seen. One customer reported hearing a ruckus in his back field late one night, and when he investigated he found his lone rotti was holding off a “line of eyes” on the other side of an “invisible” line.

That impressed me, I don’t know about you.

Pete

Redneck Pete can't wait to hear the screaming when some of these people read this.
Two shock collars and shave the neck to get a good contact point.

16 guage wire would give a better zap too.

Seems a tie out is a little more humane to me than that.

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away

WVPEACH (paula)

And whats to keep the Coyotes from going through the fence?

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Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take but by the moments that take your breath away

WVPEACH (paula)

My dog hasn't been zapped in six months, and probably once in the six months before that. During that time she has spent her time freely roaming "her" five acres. Cruel? I think not.

Pete

Tethering, kenneling, fencing and all good if used with good sense and feeling. Dogs left in the fenced back yard with no human interaction can become just as frustrated as the dog kept in a kennel or on a tether. They need to be able to get out of the sun--or into it. They need fresh food and water. They need a collar that will not strangle them or catch in the fencing. And they need to be with their humans. And given exercise and playtime. If you tie out your dog so it can have all of the above, I do not think you are being inhumane. Esp since this is something you do not do daily.

I dont like to tie a dog out for long periods of time, I do have a large 20x40 dog run.
The dogs are out when weather permits and are in at night. I would consider them inside dogs that get to play outside.

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Gary in Central Ohio

Notice you didn't quote redneckpete.

You left out alot of what he said. You must be a reporter with the news orgs. Same method they us.lol

I like the invisible fence system. I hate the shocking. I do know once the animal learns the system it dose work. We use this same tec in our prisons.

I DO HATE the shock collars many use to ZAP their dogs when they do wrong.

When I got my last adoption dog. She came with a shock collar and a contoler.

I asked the guy if he ever tried it on hims self. He said no. I gove it to the boys next door. They play with it on them selves when they are drinking.

If YOU WILL NOT TRY IT ON YOUR SELF. How could you put it on ANY animal?

I feel the same way about electrical fences. First thing I did once it was powere up. I grab ahold of it. I'll tell ya one thing. It works, and is under powered.

I sell the full line of Pet Safe brand training aids in my pet shop, we sell a lot of them.
There are a few things to keep in mind about how they work:

The correction is ALWAYS preceeded by an audible reminder beep.

The "shock" is a static discharge, not a direct current.

The gauge of the buried wire is not related to the intensity of the correction, higher gauge is stronger, lasts longer, and would be less likely to break using RP's installation method - Pete, that's quite a setup you have, how do you get your business? Do you sell the fences?

Many of the collars are manually adjustable for intensity, and some of them (like the bark control collars which work with a vibration trigger) automatically increase the shock intensity if the barking continues.

Pet Safe has excellent customer service, they have answered questions that I couldn't and sold training aids over the phone to folks I gave up on (I gave them the literature and told them to call the company.) Those folks came back and bought from me.
If your dogs blow through the fence, call the company for advice.

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Liz
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Dogs have masters, cats have staff.

Redneck Pete While I agree that any dog will learn the fencing system and come to respect it. But when their territory is violated or their prey drive is fully engaged there are many who won't even notice the stubborn dog collaron five. My older male for instance can't be trained with electicity because he will take a Tritronics, a Dogtra, or an Inotec profesional on its highest setting and ignore it despite full skin contact and wet fur. He just doesn't care when he is in drive. On the other hand he will respect our tree line with no fence just through training despite all the distractions we can safely use.

I agree the invisible fence doesn't trap the dog like a tether but it doesn't keep anything out either. Thats what I mean be trapped, ferel packs menacing them or even the neighbors pet showing up every day to steal your dogs stuff. A customer of mine has this problem her next door neighbors lab will cross the line her dog respects and steal whatever is in her yard. It drives her dog nuts when the other dog comes into her yard even when she is in the house. She is normally fine with other dogs but she has come to the conclusion that the lab must die and shows it by hackling and growling from her yard at the other dogs house. I can only imagine the mental pressure she is under. Granted this is more of a suburban problem.

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http://www.WildhausKennels.com breeders of Top Quality German Shepherd dogs Ideal for Schutzhund dog sport as well as Police Service Work and SAR.

I have to agree, invisible fence is not a sure thing; we have a hot wire on top of our regular fence (keeps the horses off it), & right after we moved here, there was a cougar near the west pasture around dawn when I'd just gone out to feed - one of my ASDs in a yard by the house saw it, & was in the process of climbing over a 5 ft fence topped with (weedburner) hot wire, when I threw loop over his neck & drug him back inside the yard! He did bounce off the wire a couple of times before he made up his mind to just go through it.

I think tethering is like anything, it can be used well or abused, & making laws that forbid it is ridiculous. People can just chuck dogs out in a fenced yard & ignore them too, sometimes you need a tether for an escape artist, or in areas w/a lot of snow (where it drifts over fences). Frankly, we have neighbors where I wish they'd tie their dogs, if they don't want to put up a fence, I'd rather they tied them than just let them run loose to get hit on the road. Mine are in fenced pastures, but I've tied one to the horse trailer for a couple of weeks when I've had a bitch in season I needed to get one of my males away from. (The bitch got the fenced area). When I was a kid, we had a big Airedale terrier that would dig out of anything, but we kept him tied to one of those overhead trolley cables, & he got lots of exercise & attention, w/out being able to roam the neighborhood & get into trouble.

I certainly don't believe that dogs should be allowed to run loose or that tying or chaining them for short periods is wrong, but consider this: Sammy was chained to the front porch of his house while his owners ran errands for a few hours. While they were gone a wildfire started & their home caught fire. Sammy was finally cut loose from his chain by the firefighters after sustaining burns to 60% of his body. The OSU Vet school & the American Humane Society took up his cause,& after 11 surguries & skin grafts he survived & returned to his owners. Would he have been better off if he had been confined in the house? The house burnt to the ground! The entire yard was burnt down to the grass roots. I think that if he had not been chained to the front porch where the firefighters could find & help him he would have died. Of course if he had been left to run loose, he may have survived without any harm by running away, or he might have run the wrong way & been trapped by the fire. It was a miracle that he survived long enough to get the excellent treatment that saved his life & that he survived the subsequent treatments. According to the Vet staff, he never growled or snapped at anyone during the very painful treatment of his burns & he was always a good & happy patient & was overjoyed to be reunited with his very thankful & tearfully thankfull owners. A happy story for everyone. But should dogs...or other animals be tied up?

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Freedom isn't Free

we had a house fire in a duplex I lived in while all the residents were out, between us we had a malmute, huskie and shephard collie mix, all too think of furred to safely use the electric fence on and since it was a nice day that day luckily they were all outside chained, our neighbors across the way were able to get our dogs to safety while waiting for the fire department. That would not have happened if they were trapped in a house that had a smoldering fire before hours before another neighbor saw it and called it in and if they were perceived as *loose* via an electric fence the local police don't even try to approach large dogs, it's shoot first.

We have a 16x24 fenced in kennel and upon occasion over past 10 years have had 150 feet dog runs. Both work. Play with dogs and they accept a lot.


Kenneth

I’ll grant you that a dog that is not conditioned may run into the shock zone when chasing prey. On the other hand, once the dog spends months on the system, the whole area “out there” becomes a no-go zone. My dog will chase rabbits down the driveway and stop at the line like she hit a pane of glass.

If every time you ever went into a certain room in your house you got a mind numbing jolt of electricity, would you really forget about it if you were being distracted by something else? After you made the correlation between the shock and the location, you would never go there again. The self preservation instinct is stronger then any prey drive. I don't believe I could DRAG my dog into the shock zone.

Pete