Posted May 26th, 2008 at 4:48PMSo my dog is great. We’ve established that. But he’s picked up a few bad habits over the past year, entirely due to poor / sloppy training. The biggest and most aggravating? We’ll be playing fetch, say, and then he’ll “get the devil in him†and suddenly take off, into the woods (or worse, up the middle of the road). He likes to chase cats or rabbits, naturally, but there is neither rhyme nor reason to this sudden bolting. I chalk it up to the Border Collie roots: in classic BC fashion, he goes crazy without enough exercise. But how do you exercise a dog that will take off with no provocation? (The idea of a treadmill has been floated, a la stupid pet tricks, but it’d be a bit silly to buy one solely for his personal use.)
So he’s been limited to a leash while outdoors, which sucks as we live in the country and he has plenty of room to roam if he’d just behave. Enter the invisible dog fence. Last weekend I spent burying the wiring (a 1-3†deep trench sounds like a cinch until you try it around an acre of slate and rock… In pouring rain). This weekend the training began.
After setting it up, I had to see how it worked. We went with a PetSafe Stubborn Dog fence, via PetSmart. The fence works by sending a radio signal from the fixed transmitter (located inside of a building) to the buried boundary wire, which limits how far the pet may roam. The pet wears a collar that, once within range of the boundary wire, first vibrates and beeps, and then shocks should he venture too near.
The kit includes a “test light†so that you can ensure the system and collar are working. But being that it was my dog who’d be shortly wearing the collar, I had to test it myself. So on Saturday with the install finished, I walk with my finger on the collar contact points into the boundary, and – DAMN – I’m shocked a bit more than what I’d call “mild.†With some regret, I collared the dog and began the training, as per manual (and instructional DVD!)
Long story short, this thing works! Baja is a genius among canines, but I imagine even a lesser dog would catch on pretty quickly. The kit includes little flags that visually mark out the boundaries, and these were quickly associated with a shock. We need to work on showing him exactly where the boundary is, as he’s still unsure of most of his yard. But on Sunday, while catching a frisbee, he took off, and I ran after, sure that he would blow through the boundary and off into the road. But surprisingly, he stopped just short in the driveway, and I caught up to him.
He’s still a wild little Border Collie, but soon he’ll be able to get all of that energy out running full bore around the yard.
Invisible dog fence? A much better buy than the Dogloo, yo.
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