Pet Containment Systems

Hello Everyone. I'm new so I'm sorry if this topic has already been discussed but I have a few questions.

Does anyone have a wireless fence containment system? What are your thoughts? I have been looking into getting one for a while. It seems like everyone I talk to has a different opinion on them, the majority of them being very negative. I did some research and found out that if the dog runs through the fence and leaves the yard, they get punished on the way out, of course, but they also get punished on the way back in. This seems like it would be confusing for my dog. I also think that it would be confusing for my dog when I want to turn off the fence and take my dog out of the yard. How would he know that he’s not going to get a stimulation when he crosses the line? Does anyone have any experience?



The other day my trainer told me about a new system that he is going to be testing. It is a reward recall containment system. Apparently the dog wears a voice collar that says the word “come” when he gets close to the boundary and it calls him to a feeder that gives him a treat. And it recognizes when the dog goes out of the yard and will not stimulate him on the way in. I think it has optional stimulation mode or no stimulation. Has anyone heard about a system like this? This system seems like it would be easier to train my dog because I would have to train him to come to the feeder instead of train him on the boundary of my yard. It also seems like it would be less confusing for my dog. He would get a stimulation only if he didn’t obey the word come (but if he’s getting a treat, why wouldn’t he come?) instead of getting a stimulation by going in an area of his own yard. I am eager to find out the results of my trainers testing, but just wanted to find out if anyone has an opinion on these systems.

I do not have an invisible fence, and never have. My reasons for that include: the fence does not protect your dog from the outside (i.e. strange people, animals and dogs) and it may be seen as a challenge and a basis for neurotic behavior in a dog, especially those that will continue to test it on a daily basis. At the first dead battery or malfunction the dog is no longer contained and will try all the more once recontained.

In my breed of choice, Weimaraners, this fence has worked just fine for some, and turned others into slobbering monsters, something akin to the dogs turned obsessive compulsive over laser pointer toys. I don't see, at their current expense and installation time, if I would risk finding out which side of the spectrum my dog would fall.

Well, I have always been lucky to have a fenced in yard, so perhaps my opinion stems from ignorance an inability to understand what it truly is like if you can't have a fence, but I honestly don't think I could ever rely on one of these fences. 1) I don't think they are fair to the dogs at all. 2) They do not protect things from coming IN. 3) It seems like the lazy man's way of training.

What are your other alternatives? Or is this the only option you are considering in terms of containment?

I totally agree, Tessa

We have an invisible fence for our 2 australian shepherds and have never had a problem. Our dogs have never broken through the fence, so they have never been "corrected" for being where they are supposed to be. But since the receiver beeps first, and then gives a correction if they do not move away from the fence, i would guess that if they did go out of boundary, it would work the same way when they are coming back into their own yard. We had it installed about 2 years ago, and only need to replace the batteries every few months. We opted for this system because our house & yard is set up a little weird, the house was built so that the majority of the land, about an acre, is off to the side of it, not the back, and to put up a fence was going to block it off in a strange way.

And I disagree with Tessa that it is a lazy way to train a dog. You can't just put the collar on the dog & let him run around. You actually have to take the time to train the dog on where the boundary is, and this can take some time depending on how quickly the dog learns, and it is a gradual process. The prongs on the collar have rubber covers so that while you are training your dog, he only gets the audible correction, before you move on. And just so everyone knows, our dogs do not get let outside unless someone is home. As much as I don't believe they would leave the yard, we would never just leave them out there without anyone around, mostly because as was pointed out already, the drawback is that you cannot keep anything else out of your yard, to include other animals, people, etc.

Oh, and my sister has a yellow lab and has the Pet Safe brand of fence, and he is pretty good with it, but he has broken through it. So I really think it depends on the dog. Good luck whatever you decide.
And I have never heard of that reward based fence.

We have a pet safe and it works great for us, but I don't think its right for every situation. We are fortunate that the land behind out yard is designated "forever wild", so there is no one directly behind us, and neither of our bordering neighbors have dogs. We also have the collars that can be set to vibrate; first it beeps, then if the dog stays in the area it vibrates and then it shocks lastly. Zuki is kind of a wuss, he got vibrated once and never goes near the border - thats all it took for him. Dutches on the other hand will push it. Our fence is only in the back, we don't allow them out front, so she will go up there just till it beeps, then will lay down at the corner so she can see down the street, the collar beeping like crazy. We go through a lot of batteries with her. They are never outside unsupervised. The dogs are trained that when the leash is on they can cross. We have never had a problem in our situation, but I would stress that I would not use it if we were on a busy street, and I hate it when people have it all the way around the house, allowing the dogs out front. People walking by have no way of knowing if the dogs are contained, and I think it would be too much temptation.
Also, a warning, my sister installed invisible fence, and her husband did not follow the instructions. He put a leash on the dog and forced him through the fence to get a shock on purpose. As a result the poor dog still shakes if you try to take him out back, and now he will only go out front on a leash. FOLLOW the directions - it takes time. I don't agree that its the lazy way. I actually have to supervise my dogs outside - unlike some of my neighbors who just chain them up to cinder blocks in the front yard!(pet peeve of mine)!
eta - I've seen dogs that can and will take the shock if the temptation is big enough. Some dogs just don't mind the shock. My best friends pittie mix will just walk through and come back. She just shakes her head a little like, what was that? So it won't work for all dogs.

I also have an Invisible Fence and it works excellent with my 2. They are never outside when I'm not home. I also live in an ideal location - last house on a long dead end road with woods on 3 sides. We are lucky that in the 30 yrs I've lived here there has probably only been 3 stray dogs. I can honestly say though that although it works great for us I would not trust it if we lived on a busy street with alot of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrians. Even though we have only infrequent visitors I do have a sign posted that we have an IF at the front of my property so people won't be caught off guard at seeing 2 loose dogs barking. It does contain them when they are chasing squirrels, passing deer & turkeys or the neighborhood cats who love to sit just on the other side of the fence boundary to pester the dogs.

My 2 know if they are in the car or on leash it is safe to go beyond the boundary.

There is alot of training that goes into working with your dog for him to learn to stay within the boundary so I think it's unfair to say it is a lazy man's way of training.

Not all dogs and an IF work well together.

Thank you for your comments. Over the last week my trainer has been testing this new reward containment system. It was amazing!

It is more like a recall system than a containment system. It consists of a treat feeder located in a central area and a voice collar mounted on the dog. It is mostly reward training but has an optional static discomfort for users that use discomfort training.

The dog is condition to the word “come” from the voice collar. The dog learns to return to the feeder on command “come” and is reinforced with a treat. The training starts by first training the dog to do simple commands like sit and lay down and come. Each time the dog performs these behaviours correctly, you push a button and the collar calls the dog to the feeder with the word "come" and the feeder gives the dog a treat. Over time the dog is conditioned and the behavior becomes habit.

The feeder can be used inside or outside and can be used in wireless mode or wired mode. So it's portable and you can take it camping or to a friends house.

I was very skeptical. But then I saw my 12 week old pointer puppy and his 10 year old lab being trained on it.

It was impressive. Both dogs totally understood the commands. The trainer had the following feedback.

* The learning of the recall command both on the older dog and puppy took three 10-minute sessions. It then took him another 10 times with the lab to train him on distractions like humans or dogs. He did use a leash to help reinforce the behavior with the lab on distractions.
* The trainer was confident that the system could be as effectively as a well-trained dog on the command come. Well-trained dogs take time to turn commands into habits.
* He has experience with the optional stimulation mode. Basically an adjustable static e-collar. The dog learns to avoid the discomfort by recalling faster. The dog is always reinforced with a treat on completion of the recall. The trainer said this was very effective because the dog first understood what the command was, and both reward and discomfort enforcement was used. However, he felt that discomfort really was not needed if the training continued with more repetitions of reward training only. He said it is really no different than any other type of non-punishment training.
* He agreed with the manufactures advantages over conventional punishment only systems.
o Dogs loved the system and got very excited when it came time to train them. It was like a game.
o Fast to train
o 90% of training can be done in the house
o Totally portable, no retraining for different locations inside or outside because the dog is responding to a command not learning a physical boundary.
o There are no side effects like you get in conventional systems (such as aggression and nervousness) because it does not use continued discomfort to teach an alternate behavior.
o Will not shock your dog if it comes back the yard.
o Will try three times to recall the dog if he goes out of the boundary.
o The dog will not get shocked if he stays in the middle of the boundary zone.
o If used in reward/discomfort mode it is much more effective than conventional containment systems.
o Can be used to reward train lots of other behaviors like sit, heel, come, down, etc.


* The trainer had some concerns like dogs would learn to activate the system to get a treat. This was overcome by a control that did not feed the dog every time. The trainer felt the best way to use the system was to feed your dog his meals from the system.

Needless to say I'm excited to see how my dog progresses with this system, but so far so great! My puppy is only 12 weeks old and he comes, sits, lays down, and goes to his bed. All without any punishment.