keeping my dog in my yard

I have not put up a fence yet because i cant afford one but i would love not to have to either though. so i wanna train my dog to stay in the yard. so far is what i do is when i take him potty i walk my property line and keep him to the inside of me. i let him off the lead and if he is tempted to cross my line i yell the come command and tell him to stay in his yard. that works till the neighbor dog is out then he is completly out of control. If i buy one of those shock collars and give him a zap after he ignores my command would that be abusive? or do you guys have any other ideas.

sorry for using this forum as a personal ask jeeves but im really pressed for time. if anyone has a good forum started could you post me the link thanks.

I don't trust boundary training to ever be 100% reliable and wouldn't use it when I couldn't supervise. If I was in your situation, I would probably use a tether. That said, I wouldn't leave the dog tied up for any amount of time, enough for a potty and quick sniff around.

As long as you give him an adequate walk every day, he shouldn't need to be in the yard for extended periods of time

Not abusive.... but also probably not effective. It'd be more worthwhile to save the money you'd spend on a shock collar and put it towards your new fence.

The boundary training you're doing - ANY boundary training, IMO - only works with some dogs and in some situations. I live on 6 acres, and let my chihuahua run off-leash, using the boundary training you described. Even with that much space for such a small dog, I still have to keep an eye on her 100% to make sure that she doesn't run to the neighbor's houses for a visit. We've been doing this for 6 months or so, and she's still not 100% good at staying on our property; I would never trust her to stay on our property if I'm not out with her.

I'd suggest using a long line leash, or even a retractable leash, to give her a long way to run but still be in physical control by you.