OT- NEED YOUR HELP Underground fencing for dogs????????????

[MarylandPizzaman]

I have a soon to be 2 year old golden retriever and was thinking about getting an underground fence that has the collar the dog wears.
Do any of you have them and do they work well?
I should point out that my front yard is huge. The entire front yard would be accessable to her.
I don't want to hurt my dog either, So before I do this I wanted to ask my fellow Diser's....

 

[dg39]

I think alot of people don't agree with the undergroung fences, but, this was my experience with it. We had a bichon frize (sp?). We had our whole yard redone and had a regular fence installed. Cost alot of $$$$. Anyway the day that it was installed we let our dog out in the yard and he was able to fit through it. We found him in the front in the street. Not wanting him to get hit by a car or run away, we installed the underground fence for him along the regular fence. After him getting zapped 2 times, he learned not to go to close to it and it worked great. He was able to have full run of the yard, got his excercise and had a ball playing around. So, it did work for us...

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

We will be getting one next week for our pups. A couple of our neighbors have them and so does my sister. They work very well at keeping your dog in your yard. The downside is that the electric fence does nothing to keep other animals OUT of your yard. Thiis could be a problem if there are a lot of strays in the area.

The dog wears a collar that emits a sound as the dog approaches the perimeter. If he goes too close, he gets a mild shock. When you first get the fence, there will be small marker flags placed around the property where the fence is buried. You are supposed to walk the dog around the perimeter of the yard on leash until he becomes familiar with the boundaries, the sound and the subsequent shock. Most dogs learn quickly. Our neighbor's Jack Russell doesn't go anywhere closer than 3' of the fence, even with his collar off!

A problem that my DSis had with her first Golden was that he willingly took the shock in order to seek out his lady friend down the road. Upon his return to home, he couldn't cross back into their yard because he wasn't as driven to take that shock. He would sit outside of their property and whine until someone would go to him, take the collar off and drag him into the yard!

In all, I think that they do the job they were designed to do. I don't think that they're inhumane or else I would not be getting one myself.

 

[Webbie]

I don't have one but 3 of my neighbors have them for their dogs. One is a daschund, one a golden retriever and the 3rd neighbor has 2 beagles and all have no problems with the fence.

 

[imageid]

We have an underground fence for our Black Lab. She learned very quickly. I think she got shocked twice. There is a warning beep when they get to close to the boundary, this will usually stop them. Our dog stays about a foot away from the fence.

 

[jryno28]

We have a wireless fence. We got it at Home Depot. Cost about $250? If I remember correctly. We have a transmitter in the house and we just turned it on, set it to how many feet out we wanted it to go and it makes like a big circle around your house. We put the collar on the dog, and we were set. He is a pit bull puppy, well now he is one year old. He got shocked once, and now he doesn't go near the boundaries.

We had the flags set up for a while, but took them down. His collar beeps when he gets too close to the boundaries, and he stops dead in his tracks, but he won't go off the property even with the collar off. Makes trips to the vets and walks around the block very interesting!! Anyway, we went with this kind of fence because we didn't want to dig up our yard, too rocky, less labor intensive, just set up and go! We love it!!!

Hope that helps!

 

[zeuss]

They are great! The only time my Lab goes accross is when the battery dies in the collar(it takes weeks for him to figure it out).

The kit is about 100.00 and you can rent a gas powered edge for around 50.00 for 4 hours and be down with it. It you have it installed by a professional, then it will cost you around 700.00 or 800.00 depending on the size of the area.

 

[goofyforlife]

My doctor has one for her golden lab. (he's almost a year old) He's been able to escape it many times unpredictably and has been found in the neighborhood luckily unharmed.

The neighbors know where her office is a couple miles away so they have brought him there when they did find him. (i had an appt one day he was there.)

Not sure where you are in MD but if you are in western md keep in mind that coyotes are getting closer to developed areas and a dog with an invisible fence would be totally unprotected.

 

[ceiligh1]

We set one up for our malamute since our 6ft fence is not high enough and the development we live in will not allow higher fences. We love it. She doesnt get zapped although she will lay down in the warning zone sometimes. She learned the area that she is allowed into quickly and we can even leave the side door to the back yard open and she will not try to come out. It was a big change for us since she was always trying to get out when we first moved in to this area. Just know that if you pass the line under the house like we did it can cause some areas of your house to be in the ok zone and some not. We now have to take her collar off when she is in the house because her dog dish is not in the ok zone.
Took about 4 hrs to set up and worth it.

 

[Chicago526]

The downside is that the electric fence does nothing to keep other animals OUT of your yard. Thiis could be a problem if there are a lot of strays in the area.

This is exactly why we decided against it. Any old dog can come into the yard, and while Missy is a big girl and can defend herself, I just don't want to take the chance. Plus if she sees a squirel or a rabbit, I don't know if the zap would stop her, she just looooves to chase things. Plus, we want a privacy fence anyway, just for ourselves. We're building one now, should be done soon!

 

[Disneefun]

If you get one, please remember that they do stop working from time to time (thunderstorms sometimes pop the fuse, if you have a power outage you may to reset it from time to time, etc.). We have neighbors with 2 scary dogs that are "contained" by the fence, but they don't check it often after storms, etc. and many times the dogs get out and chase kids, me when running, etc. It's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Not saying your dog is mean, just that these fences aren't 100% fail proof so they need checking to avoid problems with escapees. What happens if you're not home and a storm pops the fuse? Are you certain you dog would stay in the yard or does he/she like to get right up to the fence and "see if it's working?"

You also have to remember that, like other posters have said, some dogs are willing to take the shock to get to whatever it is they want to chase so you have to evaluate your dogs temperment to find out if it is likely to break the fence.

We have another neighbor that has one and she does what I would do: when she's home the dog can run in the fenced part of the yard and do whatever. But when she leaves, she locks it in the garage, just in case she's not there and the dog gets out or the fence goes down.

We looked at them for our dog but decided against it for these reasons plus the fact that we have a lot of wildlife and strays around here that the fence wouldn't keep out.

Just my. 02

 

[Karenj2]

Our neighborhood isn't ALLOWED to have traditional fencing, so for us it was either the Invisible Fence or tying our dogs up. We went with the invisible fencing and love it! Our goldens quickly learned their boundaries, and the only time they've ever tried to get through it was when their batteries were dead for months, and they forgot where the boundary was. Even with that, they know that our neighbor's dog (actually 99% of our neighbor's dogs) have an IF, so they if they get through our fence, they stay in our neighbor's yard.

Stray dogs or other animals can be a problem - we've got some neighbors in a nearby development that neither have fencing nor tie up their dogs (illegal in PA), and their dogs like to come into our development and run along the fence lines, riling up all of our dogs. It's annoying sometimes, but funny. (Granted, the dog is friendly, not vicious.) As for squirrels, we have a squirrel that LOVES to torment my dogs, but even when she's chasing the squirrel, my Maddie knows to stop at our property line.

 

[zurgswife]

we have 2 begals that do just fine with an invisible fence. Like another poster mentioned make sure you check that it is working after storms. If the power goes out they don't work...

 

[graciepooh]

I would take into account the personality of the dog in your family. We had one with a pretty good sized lab chow mix. She did fine at first but eventually decided that she wanted the squirrel in the neighbors yard more than she cared about the shock. She would back up and run as fast as she could before hitting the shock. She would then run free for the day and be waiting on us in our "neighbors" yard when we got home. She wanted out really bad and could have cared less about getting back in the yard. My DH always joked at how great the fence was at keeping our dog out of our yard. We then fenced the whole yard and I swear, the dog learned to climb the fence. My husband ran electrical wire on the top of the fence so she proceeded to dig. DH then ran the wire on the bottom. you can imagine how lovely my back yard was at this time. Our dog then head butted the vents under the house until she broke through the one in the back and out the one in the front. She eventually ran away for good. She was a great dog and as you can tell from my post much more intelligent than my DH and I. I'm not sure where she is but I am positive that she is running free.

 

[MarylandPizzaman]

I knew you guys would come through for me.
Thanks to all of you that took the time to reply.
If we do decide to get the fence my Golden will only be in the yard when we are home she actually likes being in her crate when we are away from the house for any length of time during the day.
We live in a very rural area and would not have too much trouble with strays.
The only thing I would have a problem with are the whitetail deer that trek through the yard every year. They used to stop and look at our poodle when she was outside before we lost her to oldage.
I will wait and see how much they are going to charge to install their system and then compare to the Home Depot one, Which I would not have even known about without you fellow Diser's