Electric Fence for Dog

StompToWork

borderlinemeath wrote: »

But he doesn't have 'full reign'. He's afraid to approach the boundary.

:rolleyes:
That's a bit facetious, is it not? A 1ft boundary inside the perimeter of our property is hardly curtailing full reign, in practical terms.

ShaShaBear

andreac wrote: »

Do you honestly think dogs spend their whole day running around your garden? No, they dont, they spend the time sleeping, or waiting at the back door for you to come home.

Or siphoning away their owner's money on roulette on Paddy Power.
No?
Just my dog?

DBB

runawaybishop wrote: »

They are not peer reviewed and are clearly horribly biased. This forum is just a joke when it comes to clear and unbiased advice.

Can you please read the first link... If you scroll to the end, you will find the published research papers from which the article draws its information. Please do not attempt to misrepresent what I'm saying, because what you've said above is simply untrue. You will find that I don't post behaviour-related stuff without back-up from research literature. Again, it's not my fault that the available evidence contradicts your argument, your aggressive stance in trying to deny this is not helping you.

Edited to add: For your information, here are the research paper referred to int he first link:
Blackwell, E., and Casey, R., (2006). The use of shock collars and their impact on the welfare of dogs: A review of current literature. Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol.

Polsky, R.H., (1994). Electronic shock collars – are they worth the risks? Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association, 30, 463-468.

Umstratter, C., (2011). The evolution of virtual fences: A review. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 75, 10-22.

DBB

runawaybishop wrote: »

I am just going to stop you right there. Did you train your own dog to obey the sound of your voice by giving it a kick? No?

Pardon? What are you talking about?

runawaybishop

ShaShaBear wrote: »

No, we train our dogs to obey the sound of our voice by rewarding them when they do so.

A "beep" does not have a tone of voice. A person does. The word "no" implies what "beepbeepbeep" does not.
If you never shock the dog with the collar and they magically know that "beepbeepbeep" means step away from the boundary, then you might as well not pay €190 for the fence and train them exactly the same way with your voice.

Funny, thats what is recommended with collar training - rewards.

borderlinemeath

StompToWork wrote: »

:rolleyes:
That's a bit facetious, is it not? A 1ft boundary inside the perimeter of our property is hardly curtailing full reign, in practical terms.

How about you are told to stay within the boundary of a certain area for 8hrs. There's no doors or walls, you can see the other side. You, unlike your dog, can appreciate the wonderful views and also see that there's somebody you would like to say hello to, a bit like if your dog sees another dog and wants to sniff it. Yet you cannot leave the area because if you do, you experience pain. You have been taught that if you do approach you get a warning beep, if you go closer then you get a shock.

Now imagine that you only knew this because you tried to get out once and got that shock, and it hurt like hell and you didn't know why you got it, but there was a noise just before it, so you associate that noise with the shock. So you see somebody and are really looking forward to talking to them but you take a step towards the boundary and you hear that beep, so you retreat, in fear of getting a shock. You're annoyed and possibly upset that you didn't get to speak to somebody, and it adds to the monotony of the day. You spend the remainder of your day sitting in the safest place possible that you know you won't get hurt, just waiting on somebody to come and talk to you. Not fun huh?

runawaybishop

ShaShaBear wrote: »

It is, as I am sure you will agree, impossible to face the issue of a broken line if it occurs while you are in work and will not be home for the next 6+ hours.
More than enough time for any dog to work out that they are free and to get killed by a farmer, run over by a car, or lifted by the dog warden.

If they are trained then they wouldn't be approaching the fence anyway. Properly buried or secured lines wouldn't get broken anyway.

runawaybishop

borderlinemeath wrote: »

Vet bills are fairly expensive when your dog escapes and gets run over. As is the car owner looking for the repair to his car as your dog wasn't adequately and securely contained. You could also get a fine from the council for letting your dog roam. Our fence hasn't moved a bit in 6 years, no storm/wind damage, no batteries or line breaks to worry about. I'd say it's worth the money.

Yes, i think a traditional fence is better also if you can afford it.

runawaybishop

DBB wrote: »

Can you please read the first link... If you scroll to the end, you will find the published research papers from which the article draws its information. Please do not attempt to misrepresent what I'm saying, because what you've said above is simply untrue. You will find that I don't post behaviour-related stuff without back-up from research literature. Again, it's not my fault that the available evidence contradicts your argument, your aggressive stance in trying to deny this is not helping you.

Edited to add: For your information, here are the research paper referred to int he first link:
Blackwell, E., and Casey, R., (2006). The use of shock collars and their impact on the welfare of dogs: A review of current literature. Department of Clinical Veterinary Science, University of Bristol.

Polsky, R.H., (1994). Electronic shock collars – are they worth the risks? Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association, 30, 463-468.

Umstratter, C., (2011). The evolution of virtual fences: A review. Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 75, 10-22.

That is not what peer reviewed means. Look at the references as used in the article. One of them is about the collar getting caught in a tree. The blog is not a good unbiased source of information and cherry picks data to validate its point. That is not the sort of data you should be using to make informed choices.

borderlinemeath

runawaybishop wrote: »

Yes, i think a traditional fence is better also if you can afford it.

So why not build one? If you can afford a dog, and pay for vets bills, vaccs, decent food, shelter, grooming, surely a method of keeping the dog 100% safe is worth the money? And it lasts, unlike all the consumables mentioned above.

runawaybishop

borderlinemeath wrote: »

So why not build one? If you can afford a dog, and pay for vets bills, vaccs, decent food, shelter, grooming, surely a method of keeping the dog 100% safe is worth the money? And it lasts, unlike all the consumables mentioned above.

Are you asking me in particular or is this a rhetorical question? I have no insight into other peoples finances.

StompToWork

borderlinemeath wrote: »

How about you are told to stay within the boundary of a certain area for 8hrs. There's no doors or walls, you can see the other side. You, unlike your dog, can appreciate the wonderful views and also see that there's somebody you would like to say hello to, a bit like if your dog sees another dog and wants to sniff it. Yet you cannot leave the area because if you do, you experience pain. You have been taught that if you do approach you get a warning beep, if you go closer then you get a shock.

Now imagine that you only knew this because you tried to get out once and got that shock, and it hurt like hell and you didn't know why you got it, but there was a noise just before it, so you associate that noise with the shock. So you see somebody and are really looking forward to talking to them but you take a step towards the boundary and you hear that beep, so you retreat, in fear of getting a shock. You're annoyed and possibly upset that you didn't get to speak to somebody, and it adds to the monotony of the day. You spend the remainder of your day sitting in the safest place possible that you know you won't get hurt, just waiting on somebody to come and talk to you. Not fun huh?

Again :rolleyes: . You train your dog to know where the boundary is. When this is done correctly, then your dog isn't going to be sitting all day at your door with a sour puss on him waiting for you to come home, in the Dickensian manner you are describing.

ShaShaBear

runawaybishop wrote: »

If they are trained then they wouldn't be approaching the fence anyway. Properly buried or secured lines wouldn't get broken anyway.

And as I said, and you agreed to a point, the personality of dogs as individuals means that there is always a possibility that they will forgo their training to get across the boundary. If a dog has never received a shock, and they then do, there is also no guarantee that they will walk backwards or turn around. Plenty of perfectly trained dogs ran forward through the boundary from fear instead of reversing.

borderlinemeath

runawaybishop wrote: »

Are you asking me in particular or is this a rhetorical question? I have no insight into other peoples finances.

It's directed at you, as you have admitted it's a better option than the electric fence. I'm not exactly swimming in money, and when we built the fence I probably had even less, but it was an investment that was worth spending money on, for peace of mind if nothing else.

ShaShaBear

StompToWork wrote: »

Again :rolleyes: . You train your dog to know where the boundary is. When this is done correctly, then your dog isn't going to be sitting all day at your door with a sour puss on him waiting for you to come home, in the Dickensian manner you are describing.

They don't run around in circles on the same plot of land investigating whether anything has changed since the round they did 10 minutes ago either. They usually sleep/rest and will only investigate if they notice anything out of place. Having had experience with thieves, poison and wild animals with regards to my dog, I would rather him not investigate everything he notices that is out of place. Especially if I am not around to supervise.

borderlinemeath

StompToWork wrote: »

Again :rolleyes: . You train your dog to know where the boundary is. When this is done correctly, then your dog isn't going to be sitting all day at your door with a sour puss on him waiting for you to come home, in the Dickensian manner you are describing.

That's pretty much what dogs left alone all day do. That's if they're somewhat contented. Dogs thrive, really, really thrive on human company. If you don't know that, then you don't know a huge amount about dogs.

snoman

StompToWork wrote: »

Again :rolleyes: . When this is done correctly, then your dog isn't going to be sitting all day at your door with a sour puss on him waiting for you to come home, in the Dickensian manner you are describing.

I know that this is going to sound sarcastic - it isn't meant to - but what does your dog do outside all day?

runawaybishop

ShaShaBear wrote: »

And as I said, and you agreed to a point, the personality of dogs as individuals means that there is always a possibility that they will forgo their training to get across the boundary. If a dog has never received a shock, and they then do, there is also no guarantee that they will walk backwards or turn around. Plenty of perfectly trained dogs ran forward through the boundary from fear instead of reversing.

Yet there are plenty of people that use these systems successful without frying their dogs, just as there are plenty of dogs that escape fencing. Any responsible owner should be judging the requirements of their dog based on their personality.

borderlinemeath wrote: »

It's directed at you, as you have admitted it's a better option than the electric fence. I'm not exactly swimming in money, and when we built the fence I probably had even less, but it was an investment that was worth spending money on, for peace of mind if nothing else.

My dogs have a 5 foot high chainlink run (small dogs). It would cost approximately six thousand euro for me to secure my entire site, more if I had a larger dog and it would be ugly as sin.

StompToWork

borderlinemeath wrote: »

That's pretty much what dogs left alone all day do. That's if they're somewhat contented. Dogs thrive, really, really thrive on human company. If you don't know that, then you don't know a huge amount about dogs.

Ooooohh, burn!! LOL.

You don't agree with my POV, so your response is to question my knowledge and ability to own a dog by suggesting I don't know a huge amount about them.

Again, LOL.

StompToWork

snoman wrote: »

I know that this is going to sound sarcastic - it isn't meant to - but what does your dog do outside all day?

I suppose he ponders the meaning of life, balances his cheque book, orders stuff online, you know, normal stuff. Now that's sarcastic

Here, I give up. I'm not about to answer silly questions in order to prove my knowledge of dog behaviour to justify my ability to own a dog. STW Out. Have fun talking in circles with each other.

[mumbles as he leaves] I don't know why I bother sometimes, it's pointless in here, it really is [/mumbles as he leaves]

borderlinemeath

runawaybishop wrote: »

Yet there are plenty of people that use these systems successful without frying their dogs, just as there are plenty of dogs that escape fencing. Any responsible owner should be judging the requirements of their dog based on their personality.

My dogs have a 5 foot high chainlink run (small dogs). It would cost approximately six thousand euro for me to secure my entire site, more if I had a larger dog and it would be ugly as sin.[/QUOTE]

But you don't have to fence the entire site. A dog run doesn't cost anything like that.

DBB

runawaybishop wrote: »

That is not what peer reviewed means. Look at the references as used in the article. One of them is about the collar getting caught in a tree. The blog is not a good unbiased source of information and cherry picks data to validate its point. That is not the sort of data you should be using to make informed choices.

Are you telling me that the three papers referred to in the first link are not peer-reviewed research papers or review articles? Seriously? It'd be cherry picking if one could find good research which suggests that shock collars do not cause welfare implications... but it's just not out there. Why? There must be a reason why nobody has found zero impact on dog welfare... if they had, I'd have assumed the companies that sell shock collars would have pounced on it by now.
If there was any doubt that there were welfare implications, then surely the Welsh government and currently, the English government would use it to balance out the evidence that is being presented to them to introduce laws to ban shock collars? Their shock-collar laws are anything but reactionary, it has taken years for the English legislators to get to the stage they're at now, ditto for the Welsh legislators.

If you don't accept that these articles are genuine, published and peer-reviewed research articles, there's no more I can say to you... all you've done so far to back up your use of shock collars is to try to discredit me and the available evidence I've used to back up my points, you've posted aggressively, and used foul language. You're going to have to do better than that. Go ahead and justify using the collar all you like, but until you can back your opinion up with something concrete, it's very hard to have any sort of reasonable discourse with you, given your behaviour.

For those who are interested in accepting the legitimacy of the independent published research, here are a few more for you:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016815910300248X

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159197001457

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159108003717

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3474565/


Here's a direct link to the review paper referenced in one of my links above, which itself is fully referenced:
Blackwell and Casey Literature review:
http://www.rspca.org.uk/ImageLocator/LocateAsset?asset=document&assetId=1232713013325&mode=prd

The Polsky paper published in the Journal of the American Animal Hospital Association: http://www.dogexpert.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Electroinic-collars.pdf

And Umstatter's review of the virtual control systems, published in Computers and Electronics in Agriculture: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168169910001997

ShaShaBear

StompToWork wrote: »

Ooooohh, burn!! LOL.

You don't agree with my POV, so your response is to question my knowledge and ability to own a dog by suggesting I don't know a huge amount about them.

Again, LOL.

I think you will find that it was said that if you didn't know that domestic dogs thrive on human attention, then you don't know a lot about dogs. Their dependance on their human owners for attention is a well-known trait. Either you knew that or you didn't. If you didn't then your knowledge doesn't stretch to cover that important base fact about dogs. If you did then it doesn't imply anything.

DBB

runawaybishop wrote: »

I am just going to stop you right there. Did you train your own dog to obey the sound of your voice by giving it a kick? No?

I'm going to ask you again runawaybishop, exactly what do you mean by this post, which you made in reponse to one of mine? I have asked you already what you mean by it, but you haven't answered yet, and I'd appreciate that you'd clarify exactly what you're getting at?
Thank you.

krisroger

Alpha Dog 1 wrote: »

Note="StompToWork;89311540"]I must add my opinion here, and it differs from the general consensus of the other comments. I use such a system, and I find it VERY reliable and effective.

We use the PetSafe system. Buried wire, and collar.

I wonder if most people here realise that the collar can be set to varying settings. While training your dog to where the boundary is, it is suggested that you set it to administer a correcting static shock. However, once your dog is trained to where the boundary is, the collar is then set to either beep, or vibrate, or both, WITHOUT administering the static shock. It took me 3 weeks to train my LabX to where I was confident he wouldn't cross the boundary. Now, if he gets overly curious and tries to see how far he can push it (which is rare now a days!), all he gets is a beep, which is enough to stop him.

It is important that during training, you are there supervising ALL the time. When he gets a correction, you call him to you, and you reward him for turning at the boundary. Also make sure that where you leave your property to take your dog for a walk, that he knows he can only cross it while on leash. Maybe our fella was just easily trained, but I found the whole process largely hassle-free.

As it happens, our boundary wire was damaged, and in my laziness (and due to horrible weather), it took me about 4 weeks to get around to fixing it. In that time, Deefor was still allowed out as normal, and he would still not cross the boundary. Towards the end, he did get brave, and crossed into the neighbouring field briefly one day, which is when I fixed it. As soon as he got the next beep after fixing, things were back to normal. I haven't had the collar set to shock since we finished training almost 2 years ago now (when Deefor was 6 mths old, BTW).

Considering the apparent cruelness of the system, before I bought it, I asked the shop if I could get an idea of what it was like. They had a test loop setup in the shop, and I set the collar to the highest level, and tried it on myself. You definitely feel it, but I wouldn't have described it as painful. Now, I now my threshold for pain is probably higher than my tiny (by comparison to my size) dog, but I felt it was acceptable. Much better than, say, that fool Milan constantly digging into a dog's rib cage!!

I love my fur-baby, and I would like to think I have a fair idea of what works and doesn't work, and what is "cruel" and what isn't, and I honestly believe that this system works excellently. Our dog is happy, content and most importantly, safe.

I highly recommend it.

100% agree.
With a good system, good setup and excellent training there is no reason why this should not work.

It's simply not a case of installing it and hoping it works. You need to know how it works and the correct approach to training.[/QUOTE]

Thank you for the feedback. This is similar to feedback I have got from friends about the system. She is a very clever dog, we only have her just over a week and she is almost fully housetrained already. Obviously I know she needs lots of walks but I also want to be able to give her as much space as possible when I am at work which is why I liked the idea of this as opposed to fencing/wiring. What age did you start to train your puppy with this system?

borderlinemeath

StompToWork wrote: »

Ooooohh, burn!! LOL.

You don't agree with my POV, so your response is to question my knowledge and ability to own a dog by suggesting I don't know a huge amount about them.

Again, LOL.

Well, yes. Anybody that uses an aversive and cruel method to keep their dogs contained (unsecurely), I would be of the opinion that they don't know a whole pile about dog welfare, behavioural problems and didn't do a huge amount of research if they're prepared to get away with using a system like the electric fence. Don't worry, it's not just you, I'd hold anybody who uses them, and tries to justify their using as you have, in the same way;)

ShaShaBear

StompToWork wrote: »

I suppose he ponders the meaning of life, balances his cheque book, orders stuff online, you know, normal stuff. Now that's sarcastic

Here, I give up. I'm not about to answer silly questions in order to prove my knowledge of dog behaviour to justify my ability to own a dog. STW Out. Have fun talking in circles with each other.

[mumbles as he leaves] I don't know why I bother sometimes, it's pointless in here, it really is [/mumbles as he leaves]

He sleeps. As is natural for all animals, he does not expend energy unless he needs to. He naturally conserves his energy in case an important reason for needing his full resource of energy arises.
No dog is stupid enough to run around in circles until exhausted and leave themselves vulnerable if they ever needed to run/fight in an emergency.
This is why we, as owners, need to take action and walk our dogs regularly, because otherwise our dogs would never expend that energy properly.
It is a hot-wired part of their being, as with any other animal without the same level of knowing as humans, to reserve limited resources until such time as they are needed.

CollyFowler

I'd absolutely recommend one. We have 1 1/2 year old Golden Retriever, she has only ever got 2 shocks and she has never broken out.

Best money I've ever invested.

ShaShaBear

krisroger wrote: »

100% agree.
With a good system, good setup and excellent training there is no reason why this should not work.

It's simply not a case of installing it and hoping it works. You need to know how it works and the correct approach to training.

Thank you for the feedback. This is similar to feedback I have got from friends about the system. She is a very clever dog, we only have her just over a week and she is almost fully housetrained already. Obviously I know she needs lots of walks but I also want to be able to give her as much space as possible when I am at work which is why I liked the idea of this as opposed to fencing/wiring. What age did you start to train your puppy with this system?[/QUOTE]

So, you are one of the new dog owners that only wanted one kind of response and were waiting for that before you made your decision, which was already made?

snoman

StompToWork wrote: »

I suppose he ponders the meaning of life, balances his cheque book, orders stuff online, you know, normal stuff.

... and whilst balancing his cheque book thinks 'if only I could afford a nice stuffed Kong and a safely fenced enclosure and could get rid of this vile collar - mumble.... groan.... stoopid'