Electric dog collars / dog fence, any good ?

[Valv]

I am looking to install an electric dog fence (the one buried underground) to keep my dogs from chasing cars and stay inside yard.

Anybody has experience on these ? Do they work good ?

Thanks

[MIKE IN lINO III]

Valv,

I have a springer and lab. I bought an invisible fence, the kind that you don't bury. It emits a signal from a transformer and when the dog goes too far from the transformer it will give them a " correction". Whats nice about this unit is that it is portable. You can bring it to the lake, neighbors, whatever. You don't have to worry about broken buried wires.

Works great, just make sure you spend a lot of time training your dog where the boundaries are.

Mike

[Eric Wettschreck]

Valv, I had one of the buried fences. I really don't remember the name brand or if it's considered a high or low quality one.

All I know is I would sit there and watch my lab get right up next to where she knew it was, think about it for a couple of seconds, back up a couple steps, get a running start, and bonsai right through it. Sure, she'd let out a yelp, but she was free.

[Shane683]

Hey Mike,

What does a unit like you've got cost? Thanks!

[rodbuilder]

Valv,

I have had one for 3 years (the type you bury). For the first year or so, he'd break it when he really wanted to. Eventually, he got sick of getting shocked (than booted by me), so he quit breaking the line. At first I was disappointed that I spent the $$, but looking back, I am happy with it. It has been durable with the exception of the collar. I ended up taking the transmitter out of the original collar and installed it onto a heavier nylon collar. Just make sure the "electric prods" stay tight, they are all that holds the transmitter to the collar. If they come loose and fall out, the tranmitter falls of and is most likely lost. Also, the one I have, is NOT as waterproof as they say. The brand I have is PetSafe.

Good luck!

[GoodToGo]

I've had mixed results with mine. When I buried the wire I had a problem with breaks in the line or intermittent failures. I never figured out why. I ended up switching to above ground wire, using basic electric fencing stuff (17 ga wire etc). This worked better, but I think I've made the area too big, about 8 acres. The dog has to get within a coupe of feet to get a beep. The manual says it's good for up to 25 acres, but I don't see it. I think if I was doing a smaller area I'd still put in above ground wire. Course I'm out in the country where I can fence like I want. In the last couple of weeks deer have been running through it, but it's an easy fix when that happens. I have an Innotek.

[Dan Thiem]

Hey Valv,

We got the bury kind. We priced the big company and were shocked (no pun intended) by the price. So we got the one at the local supermarket.

If I had it to do over again I'd just get a bunch of little white survey flags and stick them around the property. Then when the dog gets near just yell NO NO NO and send the dog back up to the house. Every member in the family does this a bunch of times every day. Sooner or later you can start removing the white flags a little at a time. Both our dogs respect the boundry but never even hardly got the shock. A few beep beep beeps. But after a while the transmitter fell off the collars. Junk I guess.

Enough rambling. More training than anything is the key.

[Guest]

valv,

I have one as well and it works great once you get the dog trained. It'll take a week to a month depending on the dogs demeanor. Only problem I've had is the neighbor accidentally ran over a section I had not burried yet with his lawn mower...LOL.

[Valv]

Thanks guys for the info, I am going tonight to shop around and see. The idea of the above ground is not that bad too, I am in the country and I can fence as I want.

I guess training will be next step beside fence, I lacked on this, and it's my fault.

[gspman]

I have one and it works great. Do not take shortcuts in the training. Follow it to the letter and even train longer if needed. I'm very pleased with mine. I just let the dog out now and have no worries that she's going to run off and get pancaked by a car. Great system.

[MIKE IN lINO III]

RafterJ,

It was a couple of years ago but I want to say in the $279.00 range. I've seen them at Petco, Cabela's, Fleetfarm, anywhere sporting goods are sold.

The nice thing about it, besides being portable, you can increase or decrease the circle. Bad thing is that it only goes out 90' when maxxed but you can turn it down to 5'if you want.

I was told if I wanted to let the dog have more room you can put another sending unit say 60' away from the first, just so long as the circles over lap the dog gets more room.

Mine is set in the garage and with the max setting the dogs, yes they work on more than one collar, can go all the way to the end of the driveway but thats it.

As with all dogs once they realize they don't have the collars on anymore they will wonder.

Mike

[MIKE IN lINO III]

RafterJ,

I found a web page for you. New improved version $233.99

Drop me an e-mail and I'll let you know what it is.

Mstelter (at) gopherstatelitho (dot) com

Mike

[tucciproshop]

I have an innotek 200 watt and it is the under ground type. It does a pretty good job but with german shepards there neck hair is so long you have to have the long probes and then keep the colar really tight. It works and it stops them but I ended up putting an electric fence up around the top of my chain linked because my mail kept jumping it then he would go threw the under ground shock fence.

[Moose-Hunter]

Hey Val...

You've got mail...

[Valv]

Thanks everybody, I bought an Innotek type, and so far it's working good.

Training is key for this, I have to agree.

[Tom Linderholm]

I know this post is a little late but I thought I would share anyways, Both I have had one of these and my brothere as well him with 2 springers and I have a German Shorthair. Training is key to these but remember when a dog sees something that they want and you are not around, running through the shock isn't that much of a burden for them. Three dogs and all have "busted loose". After several times to the pound to pick my dog up I was pulled aside by one of the vets and warned about these fences. She said on several occasions they have been called to homes to put dogs down because of the collar shorting out and giving a constant shock to the dog thus driving them nuts. That was enough for me to decide against the system and put up a kennel.

[Guest]

Yea, some dogs do go nuts thats for sure.

My dog is so afraid of getting shocked, ANY beep drives her to her "safe spot" near the house. She broke over the line one time when we were gone and she was so scared that she crawled into some brush and laid there for 2 days. If the neighbor haddnt have found her I'm sure she wouldve died there being so scared not to come back over the line. She was only 100 yards away but would not come when called. We actually thought she was dead.

We now kennel her up whenever we are not home and at night just to be safe. Also most of the time we dont even have the fence turned on. As long as the collar is on, she KNOWS where the boundary is and wont go near it.

[Shane683]

Mike,

Thanks for the information. If I get a chance today I will drop you an e-mail for that web site.

[minnesota mac]

I was wondering about these also, my question was answered last night on my was home from deer hunting. About 3 blocks from home I went by a dog that was hit by a car, I was very concerned about this because it looked just like my brittany, that was at the kennel about a mile away, and there was another brittany in the road running around, that looked like my dad's dog that was at the same kennel. So I turned around as all kinds of things are going through my head. I was very glad that they were not my dogs but very sad that they were someone's dogs. I tryed to get the one dog into my truck to keep that one from getting hit also, and get the other out of the road. To make a long story short both dog's had the fence collers on. I do not know why they were out, or what happened but I would have had a hard time with this if my dog had gotten out and they were hit by a car. The dog oweners were called and they were bringing the one dog to the vet in town at 9:30 last night. I do not like the looks of chain link fence either but I am not going to depend on this for my dogs.

[Guest]

I have found from expireience that they do not work well if you have more than one dog. The instinct to run in a pack is so great, and this does vary from breed to breed, that NOTHING can stop them from taking off. But some people do have luck using it on multiple dogs so that is not always the case.

Also, it might have been that these people had not trained their dogs properly or long enough with the fence or it could have gotten unplugged or something else.

All I can say is that it works EXTREMELY well with my dog and she was a really bad runner before we installed it. Have only had the one problem stated above but that was mainly because she climed over her kennel fence and fell outside the boundary, a problem we have since fixed.