invisible fence recommendations?
We've had two successful escapes from the yard this past week. I am not sure Tomoe is jumping the fence or snaking through it somewhere, but when I finally caught up with her this morning, she was playing with a neighbor's retriever in front of the retriever's house, and I managed to snag her. The owner highly recommended invisible fence. Does anybody have any recommendations for invisible fence brands to look for or avoid? I'm thinking it might be cheaper and less work than taking on the project of replacing my fence at this time.
Interestingly, though, I just talked to the breeder about Tomoe's papers, and I relayed the episode to her, and she said that she's never had a jumper, and that dogs have to be trained to jump barriers.
Interestingly, though, I just talked to the breeder about Tomoe's papers, and I relayed the episode to her, and she said that she's never had a jumper, and that dogs have to be trained to jump barriers.
Comments
On the electric fence note, we tried to do that for my Lhasa years ago. We had pads put into the collar restricting the "shock" by about 75% and she was still terrified. She wouldnt leave the house for days after the first time she got shocked. The fence was turned off and the poor dog had to be carried over where the line was for a real log time after that. I wouldn't recommend the electric fence to anyone, JMO
I have invisible fence , it's the original "Invisible Fence Brand" I have had & still do have great 100% success with it. But I have to say that it is definitely not for every dog & every situation. I'm not sure what your yard & situation is like but remember it does not stop other dogs, cats etc from coming in your yard. And are you close to a road?, even though I have never had a breakout, if I lived close to a major road I would not chance it.
I trained all my dogs in as puppies & I believe this is part of the reason for my success. Training some older dogs to an "INVISIBLE " Barrier that shocks can be a bit more challenging and "if not done correctly "can really scare some dogs enormously and produce negative effects as brittk had pointed out . You must be very patient & train them wel with the flagging as the barrier for a couple weeks.( you walk the dog on leash around & across the yard when you come close to the flagged border you quickly run towards the center of the yard & make it "no big deal" )The second phase is with the collar on set with just a beep tone you repeat the procedure the same way . the tone will later serve as the dogs warning when the flags have been removed ,that it is close to the border & to stay away. After this, you set the correction "shock" to its LOWEST setting & have the dog leashed as before "at this point your dog is now trained very well to stop & come back when he hears the tone". You now test the dog with a temptation such as another dog , family member or toy outside his perimeter. They usually won't even attempt to cross but you actually have to slowly walk them into it & when they get the small shock run with them into the center and again act like "no big deal" if you pup behaves as if he didn't even feel it then you can set it up a little higher until you see a that it makes them uncomfortable . It's been my experience that it takes one correction & your golden.
In my personal situation there is a constant flow of deer, bears , coyotes , turkeys , rabbits ,squirrels & other critters that actually seem to know that the dogs won't cross that "invisible" line so they will hang out feed & walk within 50 yards or so of the border & taunt my shikoku & two shibas . They just sit & watch, & if they run a critter out of the yard they stop when it goes across the line. My experience, & situation may be a bit unique but I personally love it!
I would say that you must really think about your dog , his trainability , your location & your situation before you you take the plunge.
Real fences also contain throw objects like balls and frisbees, and keep kids, dogs and most itineratn wildlife out. (we DID get a family of turkeys in the yard, despite the real fence...) I vote you fix the fence. extend it up- there are also ways to put a rolling piece of pvc pipe along the top so theres no grip.
I dunno, the whole thing is really stressful, I feel like I have to "do something" to bring the situation back into control. Before I put this invisible fence up, i apparently need a masonry drill to drill a hole in my garage wall because the transmitter needs to be out of the elements including freezing temperatures. And I need some kind of post puller to replace the fence.
Trained to jump barriers? Huh?
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Only you can decide . the Invisible Fence Brand that I have is now about 15 yrs old & I have not had any problems at all . Idon't know anything at all about the brand you have but I 've heard a lot of complaints about the "knock offs" I'm a believer in you get what you pay for, my dogs are precious members of my family & I'm sure yours are too so don't go cheap if you don't have to. If you have any reservations at all about your situation then you can't go wrong with a "real" fence!
When we come strolling down a street, the neighborhood cats have learned to make a hasty retreat. A couple times they've gone over 5 and a half foot fences to get away, and the first time the dogs surprised me by jumping onto the top of the fence (precarious yes) when we got to the spot.
On the cat note, we have so many strays here in the neighborhood it's really annoying. Try walking 3 hunting NK twice a day around a neighborhood filled with cat scent. Not so fun. And believe me if I let them, the dogs would do anything to get at the cats.
I have heard good things and bad things about invesible fences. My friend used it on his mature rotti's and worked really well and I used it on Riki when he was about 5 years old and it was a big mistake.
I think its a gamble, I just spend some time watching to see where Taro sneaks his way out and just pile rocks and boulders or board it up.
Carleen probably has some opinions that differ from those of most of you...but based on Tomoe I have to say she breeds a pretty good dog.
the whole Dog Journal had an article about invisible fences and talked about how they can cause MORE aggression in dogs....ie. dogs are barking at other animals, they get zapped, and they associate other animals with the zap. And of course, other animals can get in, too. This is pretty much what WrylyBrindle is noting....real life example there.
It's a major pain to fix the fence. I know--I've had to do some work on mine. And it's often not cheap. But I think it is way better than an invisible fence. Think about it this way--would you give your dog an electric shock to try to train them? Probably not. So why do it with a fence?
Let me clear something up about your comment about giving a dog an "electric shock" as I attempted to clearly state above . Having an invisible fence is about training ,..not shocking, If a dog charges or attempts to escape a physical barrier he will feel pain & possibly hurt himself also. In the very beginning when you allow the dog to get the correction (if done properly) is little more than a pinch, NOT ELECTRICUTION. I can honestly say levi now 8, gin now 2.5, & koshi now 8 months combined have probably felt a correction less than 5 times combined over all these yrs. Levi & Gin don't even wear the collar any more they just stay in the yard . Just like any "training", it must be done properly .
I'm not trying to convince anyone to get invisible fence I just stated my personal experience. There is no doubt this is not for every dog & every situation.
That may have been mentioned in this thread already, I dunno, but that is my main worry with invisible fences. That, and I know for sure an invisible fence wouldn't stop some of our (larger) dogs from escaping, but they are not little Shiba.
Also, you mentioned you train your dogs as puppies w/ the invisible fence, how do you do that? How young are the pups when you first introduce the invisible fence? Just curious.
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However, I trained them for quite a bit longer than the original training was supposed to last. With Bella, I worked with her for about 4 months, Nola for about 6 months before they were allowed to be "free" in the yard. And by "free", I mean still supervised, just not on a leash.
Brad, to answer your question about training the dogs (mine were both puppies) on the invisible fence, you do so with the prongs COVERED. That is super important. The prongs are covered so there is no shock at all. The dog should be on a short leash and should be lead near the boundary. The collar will beep when the dog is withing X feet of the wire. As soon as you hear the beep, you should immediately turn the dog around and walk AWAY from the boundary, praise and treat. We also used flags as a visible boundary for the dogs to get used to where they could and could not go. After a couple of days of this, I let the dog wander on its own accord around the yard. When she got to the boundary and heard the beep, I would wait a second and see if she would back up, if I did, then I would praise like crazy and give a yummy treat. If she did not, then I would lead her away and praise, no treat. This way, she would understand that backing away of her own accord was MUCH better than being led away. Once it seemed that she got the hang of backing away when the collar beeped, the cover came off the prongs. The dog was led to the beep and allowed to stay there to see what would happen. She would get a small shock (I tested it before I put the collar on the dog, it startled me, but was not painful), be pulled towards the middle of the yard if she did not automatically back up and given lots of praise and yummy treats. Then the cover went BACK on the prongs, for more training. After the dog had a fairly good idea of what her boundaries were and what were expected of her, the flags started to come up. Once the flags were up, the prongs came off the collar, and she was allowed to drag her leash around. Once I felt that she was 100% with where she could and could not go, the leash came off.
However, it is important to note that I never left my dogs unattended in their yard with the invisible fence. EVER. I lived in the city at that time, and even though my dogs would not have gotten out, other animals could get in. For the protection of both my dogs, and the neighborhood population of rabbits, squirrels, mice, and chipmunks... I was always out there with them.
The fence worked great in our situation. However, it does not always work for all dogs. And I would not use it as an unsupervised containment system for any dog, especially a Nihon Ken. And if a dog ever escapes an invisible fence, you will have to get a different type of containment system... You can never re-train a dog on an invisible fence. Once they know the shock only lasts for a second and if they run fast enough, it might not shock at all... They will ALWAYS know it.
Sorry for such a long post...
Yes ,We do have a couple hundred acres here. The area around the house with the invisible fence is only about an acre & a half or so . As far as my concerns about other animals, the two that top my list are skunk & a porcupine, so far we've escaped without these encounters . Oh yes, when Koshi came into heat we went into a very very very very High & constant state of alert & watchfulness.
In all the time that we lived here with this setup I can honestly say that the only "incident" we had was that a very bold coyote came up our driveway & came within about 30 yrds of the house and just sat down, the two shibas sat on the porch & barked & carried on until I came out and scared it off. We never actually leave home let them out, so if something came into the yard that threatened them they will come to the front door & carry on,not try to run off. Brad really the shock is nothing more than the a safety net, the dogs have just been taught the boundaries they are not "fearful" of the border in any way . like I said the shibas don't even wear the collar 95% of the time.
When I said puppies I believe mine were & should be at least 4 months old. Well, as far as the procedure of training goes, you first use what I call landscape flagging that you place about 4 feet apart directly above the entire fence line(you can use the collar tone to locate the exact location of the buried wire) Up until now the dog has never been off leash & ventured out of the yard on his own. So you begin the first week with walking your dog "ON leash" up to the flagging ,when you approach the flags you run back to the center of the yard you do about twice a day for about a week. Pretty soon the dog does it on his own kinda like a game. The next step is with the collar but with protective caps on the prongs so they only hear a low tone . You repeat the procedure the same way now they have a visual & an audible signal that tells them to not touch that line. The dogs usually learn very well . When you feel the dog has it down you can set the collar to a LOW corrective shock. At this point it is usually pretty hard to get the dog to walk into the flagging because when he hears the tone he turns around already. You actually have to give them a correction at first ,so you keep trying to walk the dog into the correction zone with small temptatations, sooner or later they make the mistake & while on lead you just run towards the yard & act as nothing ever happened , no praise ,no sympathy, nothing. This is typically all it takes. In the case with Koshi she barely even flinched so I turned it up a little until I saw her flinch & then she just trotted back to the center ..no big deal.Over the next few weeks you start removing every other flag until they are all picked up.
Brad I believe your right, In your situation having your big dogs obeying invisible fence would be a very tall order:)
And I agree with your last statement... I bet Big L and Blue could probably just step right on over the boundary and not even worry about getting a correction. lol.
I guess the "beep" is a bridge to a correction, just like a "click" (from a clicker) is a bridge to a reward.
The "turning the dog around when they hear the beep while on lead" thing sounds like negative-punishment, you are removing their freedom to explore further (that's the negative part - you are taking something away) for them getting too close to the boundary.
I wonder if the same results could be seen using reward instead of punishment. Like, for example, off the top of my head, you could reward your dog for truing away from the "fence line" when they hear a beep. The walk up to the fence line, hear the beep, you call them to you and treat them. That would condition the response of: they hear the beep, they turn and run to you (or an area in the yard), they get a treat. If you did that enough with them, eventually randomly giving them treats for the behavior (as in not giving them one every time), then they would start to "gamble" for the treat - and that would lock the conditioned response into place. Then what's the point of the shock?
Makes me wonder, Cliff, if you could do this same training with your dog w/o installing an invisible fence and see very similar results - I mean, both invisible fence users above stopped needing the shock after a while. And we all agree that the shock isn't gonna stop them if they really want to go after something. Same rules apply for you with your fence and just using a training method - it will "fix" the issues 90% of the time, but if she really wants to escape she will - and that is the same situation with the shock collar fence model.
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@Dave - If you have 100s of acres of land around your home, with a acre or so "fenced" in, I wonder if your dogs don't run off because there is just no where to run off too?
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I'm glad to hear the training isn't done with full-shock on a little pup. I had this vision of Chupa, who is a bit of a spazz, getting caught at 8 weeks old in the "shock zone" and just staying there freaking out and freezing from the shock of the shocker. yikes.
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As far as your side note to Cliff I agree , where I take Koshi to obedience school the trainer did exactly that with her dog no fence physical or electriic just trianed the dog to the flagging on the treat & reward system.
Yikes is right 8 weeks is wwaaayy too young that would be a classic way to screw a dog up big time! !!!
Here's a funny little side note, when I take the dogs for a walk I always put them in the truck & drive to the end of the driveway & then go. I 've heard you can ,but I NEVER walk them out of the yard.
but I could've sworn there was a member whose dog figured out how the fence worked. The dog would go to the marker, have the collar "beep" until the battery died, & since the battery was dead...no more shock! & The dog kept escaping. ~
They won't stop her from going under holes in the fence, but should prevent her from getting over.
And there is the issue Brad mentioned of other animals coming on the property. I'm glad your dogs were not hurt by the coyote. My female Shiba was very badly injured this past fall by a coyote (s), and they got her in spite of the fence. Obviously, my fence isn't keeping them out as well as I would like, but since we've reinforced it, it is better than NO fence, which is pretty much what the invisible fence is to the coyotes.
Overall, it's a difference of opinion. I view the Invisible Fence in the same way I do the electric collars--I believe they can cause more problems than they solve, and I would not use them on my dogs.
On another note, the coyoteroller is quite intriguing....don't think it would work on my wire stock fence, but it sure is a good idea.
I'm quite interested in the coyoterollers though. I don't think they'd work on the fence I have, but it certainly would be useful.
I agree with you in many situations this type of fence can do more harm than good! :)Wow Lisa, a coyote actually broke into your fence & got at your shiba, that's terrible. I'm so sorry to hear that. I hope she has recovered physically & emotionally
Dave ,
Where did you ever discover those coyote rollers? I hope others see them ,they look like they could be the cat's whiskers in for a lot of people!
Nice find!
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2500/4009084775_ce39a181ac_m.jpg
All I can say is LGD. ;o) Luytiy does very little guarding now, his presence alone keeps all the critters away. If Coyote are jumping your fence and attacking your dogs then I think its an appropriate option, and its a proven preventive...
http://www.sheepusa.org/user_files/file_713.pdf
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Re: LGD...believe me, I have considered it! When my GSD was well enough to go out with the Shibas, I think he intimidated the coyotes, but now he's simply too sick.
Because I love Akitas, I'm going that route....(even though I know they will not be nearly as good at the job as an LGD), as I am hoping just the presence of a big dog will keep them out. (Of course, I will have to be very careful with a pup!)