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Kafween's Smart Dog
Kafween wrote about her dog in a.m-b: Subject: Invisible fence, & too-smart dogs Ed wrote: Anyone using an invisible fence? I can not install a conventional fence and I have a younger dog who try's to bolt on occasion and I do not want her to get squished. It depends on the dog. We had a male Border Collie named Connor who was a regular Houdini. He broke out of his wire crate by flexing the joints, and when Dan zip-tied them shut, he broke the nylon zip ties. We had a cedar fence, and when Connor got the urge to go bumming, he'd just yank a board or two off - just pull the nails straight out - and be gone. When Dan wised up and started re-attaching the boards with drywall screws, Connor simply splintered the boards until they broke around the screws. We installed an electric fence wire. He dug under it. Dan bought a velcro muzzle for Connor to wear outside, on the theory that if he couldn't get his teeth on the fence, he couldn't break out. He had the muzzle off and destroyed in about 5 minutes. Dan went back and bought this black leather affair that made Connor look like a canine Hannibal Lecter. So he jammed his whole head between the boards (which were arranged shadow-box pattern) and levered them loose with his neck. We also discovered that it is indeed physiologically possible for a dog to bark through his nose. So we gave up on the muzzle idea. Finally, we installed an invisible fence, with the shock perimeter set approximately 10 feet inside the wooden fence. We didn't want him to be able to get anywhere near it. Now an invisible fence alone won't stop a really determined dog. They'll discover quickly enough that they can take a couple of good zaps and be on thier merry way. It takes a true idiot to stand there, taking shock after shock while you work to dismantle the wooden fence. And despite all evidence to the contrary, Connor was no idiot. So he would walk the perimeter, looking for gaps, and he discovered that he could advance to the very edge of shocking range, setting the warning tone from his collar to shrilling madly, then he would lay down. And wait. For the batteries in his collar to drain down. When the warning tone faded away, he would stand up, have a nice stretch, break the fence and be gone. In the end, the only thing that stopped him was two ruptured disks in his neck. Apparently the canine neck was never designed to be used as a crowbar. Then there was Molly, who came too close to the fence once, got shocked, and spent the next week shitting on the patio, convinced that it was the grass that had gotten her. Like I said, depends on the dog... A followup... Lee Bower wrote: I used to use one with my Weimaraner to prevent him from going into the street. It was used until he was about a year old and it worked very well. Later, when he was tempted to go into the street, we'd simply put the collar on him while the "wire" was mostly off (we turned it on once in a while as a reminder) for another year or so. Now, eight years later, the dog never crosses the curb. In fact, he wants me to pick him up while crossing the curb when we go for walks. I believe the system worked very well. And no, it's not as painful as people think. I zapped myself several times intentionally to test the system. After all, I wanted to know what was going to happen to him.
With the system we had you could adjust the width of the "dead zone" with a control at the house, and as I mentioned, we had it set on maximum. As Dan put it, "We don't want "Dickhead Dawg" over there to get any ideas about doing the standing broad jump".
The strength of the shock the dog receives is also adjustable. We set Molly's collar on the minimum, so that the shock she received was barely a tickle (felt like a tingling buzz when I tried it out). However, she was extremely shy and sensitive and after her one and only zap, the warning tone alone was more than enough to keep her away from the perimeter. In fact, the sound of Connor's collar sounding a warning tone was enough to make her hyperventilate and drool. Connor's collar was set for the maximum shock. I tried it out by holding the collar with the electrodes pressed into my palm as I walked toward the fence. The shock I received was nasty enough that I refused to repeat the experiment, never mind putting the thing on like a necklace and seeing what a shock of that intensity felt like. It certainly would have kept *me* in the yard. Connor received several shocks while probing the limits of the new system. You'd see him suddenly leap backwards, then shake himself all over before proceeding with his testing. Even when I wasn't watching, I knew when his collar had activated because Molly would come flying up onto the deck and start flinging herself against the glass door, yammering to come into the house (ohgod, ohgod, they're shocking dogs out here, lemme in, lemme in, please!!!). She was more traumatized by Connor's collar than he ever was. So I was sure that we'd found the answer to Connor's constant escapes. I knew he was smart. Border Collies are the rocket scientists of the dog world, and Connor was sort of the rogue, evil genius type... But even so, I never imagined him being able to figure out how to wear down the batteries in his collar. Thank god he didn't have an opposable thumb.... Kathleen
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