I left the house to run a few errands, yesterday, and left the dogs outside to their own devices. I didn't even bother to put Sadie's "shock" collar on her, because she knows well her boundaries and only rarely ventures past them. (Plus, if she's not wearing it, I can hardly forget to take it off of her and shock her on the way down the driveway.) Moose, for the most part, orbits her and has not been seen to stray far from her side, unless it's to go hide in the mud beneath the back deck.
Upon my return, I found both dogs waiting for me at the top of the driveway, as though they'd been sitting there the whole time planning my welcome. I gathered up my grocery bags and we all went into the house through the interior door of the garage.
Around 20 minutes later, I noticed something odd with the back door of the house, the one leading out onto the deck. Crammed behind the handle of the door were two rolled up mini-magazine-sized pamphlets. I opened the door, already knowing full well what they would be.
"What are these?" I asked Sadie, holding up the November issue of The Watchtower and October's Awake! Sadie saw what I held and then looked away with a guilty air. "What Are These?" I repeated. Again, she dropped her head in shame.
"You let Jehovah's Witnesses get to the back door," I said sternly. "Moosey, I can understand, because he's new and he likes everybody. But YOU..." I said, waving the magazines at her, "YOU let them get all the way to the back door."
Then I noticed that I'd actually left the back door unlocked when I went out. I gasped.
"Jehovah's Witnesses could be in this house right now!" I said. "They could be lurking in the house right now, waiting to jump out and... and witness to me!"
Sadie lay down on the floor and looked suitably wracked with guilt. She was probably regretting not simply pulling the magazines out of the door and letting Moose chew them up.
"For shame," I added.
That the visitors at my back door were Jehovah's Witnesses was not actually the issue. I was mainly putting on a show for the dog's benefit because it struck me as funny for their appearance to BE a problem. The fact is, though, I don't so much mind visits from Jehovah's Witnesses or most other religions, but I also don't tend to invite them in to discuss religion either. My own religious views often conflict with theirs so the discussions I've entertained in the past have quickly degenerated into the three of us (there are always two of them) just conflicting at one another and moving no one's view even a smidge'.
No, the real issue here was that Sadie had allowed strangers to reach my unlocked BACK door. The front door would have been fine, as that's the door that strangers to a home SHOULD be visiting in the first place. I mean, really, isn't it a bit rude to just walk around to the rear door of someone's home uninvited? I would have been pissed off about it if I'd been home to meet them and would likely have pointed this out to them. But to the back door they had gone and Sadie had, apparently, not even attempted to eat them.
Now, I'm not suggesting that she should have attempted to eat them. However, she is an imposing enough dog at 80 plus pounds, with a bark twice as powerful as most male dogs her size, so she could have at least stood in the strangers' path and given them pause to consider whether or not she might eat them. Nope, they'd made it from my driveway, across the 30 feet of boardwalk leading to the back deck (as opposed to the 35 feet of nice clean boardwalk leading to the front door), had time to carefully deposit their magazines behind the handle of the back door, and, presumably, made it safely back to their vehicle. I didn't even see any scraps of clothing that might have indicated a hasty retreat with canine in hot, slavering pursuit.
Oh, I'm sure she barked at them, as she barks at everyone, but I rather expected more of a defensive front from her. Then again, maybe she had guarded the walk to the front door after all, and left Moose to guard the back one where he would have been completely ineffective. Or, maybe one of the Jehovah's Witnesses had cornered her in the front while the other snuck around the back. I don't know.
Regardless, it appears our fearless guard dog, who is impressively brave when it comes to defending us from the ever-present threat of vicious, rabid deer, isn't so good when it comes to smiling, peaceful strangers. Not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing. I guess, instead, what I should really be thankful for is that I don't have a lawsuit on my hands, filed by a mauled Jehovah's Witness or two.
Showing posts with label Zap-A-Dog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zap-A-Dog. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
How to Zap-A-Dog Yet Again, Pepe (a.k.a. "Even more Electrical Problems")
Monday night we went to see the new Trek film. I met the wife at the hospital and we drove to the movies from there in her car. On the way home, she lamented that she wished we didn't have to go back to pick up my car, cause that would add another ten minutes to the trip home.
"How bout I just take you to work in the morning and pick up my car then?" I offered. She accepted.
In the morning, we got ready to go and decided to pop by Biscuit World on the way. We decided to let Sadie ride along, because she's a big fan of Biscuit World ever since the day the lady at the drive-through line fed her six pieces of bacon. This act of generosity permanently marked the location on Sadie's internal map of great places to go. She piled in the back of the wife's car, the wife got in the front and I was about to climb in when I remembered I'd not turned off the wireless fence. I stepped back inside, flipped the switch and then went back to the garage where I was met with a series of painful yips and yipes coming from the car. The wife didn't know what was going on at first and thought perhaps the dog had found a bee in the car. I knew instantly, though, that it was Sadie's shock collar.
As she's been taught, Sadie dashed out of the car, no doubt thinking it had somehow become off limits despite its lack of warning flags, and began dancing wildly around the interior of the garage.
Now what I should have done was run back inside and switch the transmitter on again. What I did instead was rush into the garage and try to capture the dog to remove her collar. This was far easier in concept than execution, because the dog was jumping around, fearfully trying to get away from whatever was attacking her and looking at us both in confusion as to what wrong she'd done to deserve such a fate. Within a few seconds I had captured her, but couldn't find the clasp on the collar and managed to get shocked a couple of times in my search for it. Once I got it off, the thing continued to buzz until its 30 second time limit ran out.
My theory on why the collar had begun to shock her is that the wireless fence, when switched off, sends a signal to the collar to go into standby mode, not shocking the dog until such a time as the transmitter signal (or that of another transmitter) is detected. I further think that the metal of the car's frame may have interfered with that signal reaching the collar, so when the transmitter stopped the collar deduced that it was now outside of the boundary and began to shock the dog.
So, reissued memo to self: remember to take the damned collar OFF before going anywhere.
As for my Trek review...
"How bout I just take you to work in the morning and pick up my car then?" I offered. She accepted.
In the morning, we got ready to go and decided to pop by Biscuit World on the way. We decided to let Sadie ride along, because she's a big fan of Biscuit World ever since the day the lady at the drive-through line fed her six pieces of bacon. This act of generosity permanently marked the location on Sadie's internal map of great places to go. She piled in the back of the wife's car, the wife got in the front and I was about to climb in when I remembered I'd not turned off the wireless fence. I stepped back inside, flipped the switch and then went back to the garage where I was met with a series of painful yips and yipes coming from the car. The wife didn't know what was going on at first and thought perhaps the dog had found a bee in the car. I knew instantly, though, that it was Sadie's shock collar.
As she's been taught, Sadie dashed out of the car, no doubt thinking it had somehow become off limits despite its lack of warning flags, and began dancing wildly around the interior of the garage.
Now what I should have done was run back inside and switch the transmitter on again. What I did instead was rush into the garage and try to capture the dog to remove her collar. This was far easier in concept than execution, because the dog was jumping around, fearfully trying to get away from whatever was attacking her and looking at us both in confusion as to what wrong she'd done to deserve such a fate. Within a few seconds I had captured her, but couldn't find the clasp on the collar and managed to get shocked a couple of times in my search for it. Once I got it off, the thing continued to buzz until its 30 second time limit ran out.
My theory on why the collar had begun to shock her is that the wireless fence, when switched off, sends a signal to the collar to go into standby mode, not shocking the dog until such a time as the transmitter signal (or that of another transmitter) is detected. I further think that the metal of the car's frame may have interfered with that signal reaching the collar, so when the transmitter stopped the collar deduced that it was now outside of the boundary and began to shock the dog.
So, reissued memo to self: remember to take the damned collar OFF before going anywhere.
As for my Trek review...
Friday, May 8, 2009
Don't-Actually-Zap-A-Dog-But-Threaten-To-Zap-A-Dog (Zap-A-Dog Week Part 4)
Back when we first got Sadie, she was tiny enough to fit beneath the back deck of our house, which is one of these low to the ground decks not designed for animal traffic beneath them. It used to drive me crazy that she would do this there because I could imagine all manner of venomous serpents living under there, ready to strike any unwise puppies who happened to like sniffing and thrashing through the leaves and muck. We tried to head this off by putting logs and large rocks along most of the lower bits of deck edging and full on foot-wide boards along the higher bits, but there was still one section beneath a part of the house that juts out over one of the flower beds that we could never seem to successfully wall off which she could still squeeze through.
Of course, when we returned from our July spent out of state, the dog realized with great frustration that she had grown so much in the intervening month that she couldn't fit under any of it, so we stopped worrying. And, some time during the winter, we even removed the boards from the higher section of the deck, thinking there was no way Sadie could squeeze under there.
We were wrong.
A few weeks back, I heard the crunching and scuffling of leaves from beneath the deck and realized that Sadie had indeed squeezed under there and was actively getting as filthy as she could manage. It wasn't really snaky weather, yet, so I wasn't too concerned, but wanted her out all the same, on principle. With the application of Pupperonis I was able to coax her over to the edge where she spent ten minutes teasing me and snatching bites until I was at last able to grab a paw and haul her out. Still, I failed to replace the boards, thinking this was somehow a one off.
A few days after installing the wireless fence, Sadie dashed back under the deck. It was rainy out and I didn't want to have to give her a damned bath from all the mud she would no doubt wallow in, so I very intelligently stood atop the deck and screamed at her through it to no avail. It then occurred to me that a timely scare might work wonders.
I stole away to the wireless fence transmitter in the laundry room and, after some consideration make certain I was not about to act too unethically, I quickly dialed the fence's field range from its highest setting of 8 down to 1 and then immediately back up to 8. In theory, this would reduce the wireless fence from a radius of 90 feet down to 5 feet and then back again. The key to my plan was that the sudden reduction would set off the warning alarm on Sadie's collar without actually shocking her, prompting her to take action.
Worked like a dream.
Almost as soon as I'd dialed the fence back up to 8, I heard a sudden THUNK as Sadie bonked her noggin on the underside of the deck in fright at the sudden BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPing coming from her collar. And, miliseconds later, she was topside and looking relieved at her collar's silence.
I told the wife what I'd done and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Then we put a baby gate over the space beneath the deck to block it until I can find some suitably large rocks. Now that I consider it, though, it would probably be just as effective if we just planted one of the wireless fence border flags there, instead.
Of course, when we returned from our July spent out of state, the dog realized with great frustration that she had grown so much in the intervening month that she couldn't fit under any of it, so we stopped worrying. And, some time during the winter, we even removed the boards from the higher section of the deck, thinking there was no way Sadie could squeeze under there.
We were wrong.
A few weeks back, I heard the crunching and scuffling of leaves from beneath the deck and realized that Sadie had indeed squeezed under there and was actively getting as filthy as she could manage. It wasn't really snaky weather, yet, so I wasn't too concerned, but wanted her out all the same, on principle. With the application of Pupperonis I was able to coax her over to the edge where she spent ten minutes teasing me and snatching bites until I was at last able to grab a paw and haul her out. Still, I failed to replace the boards, thinking this was somehow a one off.
A few days after installing the wireless fence, Sadie dashed back under the deck. It was rainy out and I didn't want to have to give her a damned bath from all the mud she would no doubt wallow in, so I very intelligently stood atop the deck and screamed at her through it to no avail. It then occurred to me that a timely scare might work wonders.
I stole away to the wireless fence transmitter in the laundry room and, after some consideration make certain I was not about to act too unethically, I quickly dialed the fence's field range from its highest setting of 8 down to 1 and then immediately back up to 8. In theory, this would reduce the wireless fence from a radius of 90 feet down to 5 feet and then back again. The key to my plan was that the sudden reduction would set off the warning alarm on Sadie's collar without actually shocking her, prompting her to take action.
Worked like a dream.
Almost as soon as I'd dialed the fence back up to 8, I heard a sudden THUNK as Sadie bonked her noggin on the underside of the deck in fright at the sudden BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPing coming from her collar. And, miliseconds later, she was topside and looking relieved at her collar's silence.
I told the wife what I'd done and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Then we put a baby gate over the space beneath the deck to block it until I can find some suitably large rocks. Now that I consider it, though, it would probably be just as effective if we just planted one of the wireless fence border flags there, instead.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Zapping-A-Dog Yet Again
I've discovered some more bits of advice for owners of the wireless fence: it's a good idea to remove the correction collar when taking your dog ANYWHERE outside of your yard regardless of whether or not you first remembered to turn off the transmitter--but especially if you didn't
Couple of examples...
My dog is fond of daily walks in my neighborhood, but there are a couple of different routes I can take her on depending on my mood. One is downhill for the first half, then back up, and the other is uphill for the first half, then back down. Since installing the wireless fence, we've only gone the downhill route, which passes by fewer houses than the uphill route. A couple days back, I took her out (making certain to turn off the transmitter first) and we went the uphill route. Everything was fine on our way up the hill, but upon our return trip, Sadie strayed too close to the property line of a neighbor who, it turns out, has the wired version of the invisible fence installed. Sadie stepped onto his driveway and crossed the wire he'd embedded in it, which put her in the warning zone of his yard. Her collar immediately began beeping, causing Sadie to freak out because she didn't know which way to run. I didn't realize what was happening, at first, because I had my earbuds in, but I could see the dog was distressed, made the proper deduction and unhooked her collar without shocking myself.
Example Two: Sadie LOVES to go on car rides. So while the weather is still fairly cool, I've been taking her on all my errands. One day, two weeks back, I decided my car had reached the saturation point of exterior filth and was in need of a scrubbing. I thought it would be fun to go through a car wash and see what Sadie thought of it. I paid the automated system and drove into the car wash, and it started up, at which point Sadie freaked out. She whined and growled and barked as the rag rollers began slapping against the windshield and roof. After a few seconds of this, though, she leaped from the back seat into the front and climbed into the front passenger floor, where she curled up, practically burying her head beneath her paws. She only stayed there for a few seconds, though, before jumping into the back seat again, where she worriedly growled at the massive creatures attacking the car, then jumped back in the front floor. This happened three or four times during the process, but we were sort of in it for the long haul at that point, so I could only pet her try and reassure her that it was okay and that she was a good dog. We think the front passenger floor is her place of refuge, because that's where she used to always ride when she was a small puppy and that's where we found her cowering one day this winter when we parked near the door of a Cracker Barrel and suspect she was startled by the other customers walking past the car or by someone trying to talk to her through the window.
Jump ahead to yesterday. I have an errand, I have a dog that wants to go, I let her in the car, back out of the garage and head down the driveway like normal. Just past the warning flags, Sadie wedged herself atop the arm rest between the two front seats, right in my way.
"Get in the back," I told her. She didn't budge. "Get in the back!" I said, pushing her with my elbow. She remained. "Get in the damned back!!" I shouted. This time, she leaped between the seats and hopped into the front passenger floor, where she spun around facing me, then sat down in her best straight-backed "LOOK, I'M BEING A GOOD DOG" pose and appeared very very concerned. Only then did I notice the beepbeepbeepbeepbeep coming from her collar and realized I'd forgotten to turn off the transmitter.
I stopped the car, pulled the collar off of her and then spent a minute apologizing, saying things like "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Pa did not mean to shock a dog!" while she did the I'm a Good Dog dance all over the front seat.
Couple of examples...
My dog is fond of daily walks in my neighborhood, but there are a couple of different routes I can take her on depending on my mood. One is downhill for the first half, then back up, and the other is uphill for the first half, then back down. Since installing the wireless fence, we've only gone the downhill route, which passes by fewer houses than the uphill route. A couple days back, I took her out (making certain to turn off the transmitter first) and we went the uphill route. Everything was fine on our way up the hill, but upon our return trip, Sadie strayed too close to the property line of a neighbor who, it turns out, has the wired version of the invisible fence installed. Sadie stepped onto his driveway and crossed the wire he'd embedded in it, which put her in the warning zone of his yard. Her collar immediately began beeping, causing Sadie to freak out because she didn't know which way to run. I didn't realize what was happening, at first, because I had my earbuds in, but I could see the dog was distressed, made the proper deduction and unhooked her collar without shocking myself.
Example Two: Sadie LOVES to go on car rides. So while the weather is still fairly cool, I've been taking her on all my errands. One day, two weeks back, I decided my car had reached the saturation point of exterior filth and was in need of a scrubbing. I thought it would be fun to go through a car wash and see what Sadie thought of it. I paid the automated system and drove into the car wash, and it started up, at which point Sadie freaked out. She whined and growled and barked as the rag rollers began slapping against the windshield and roof. After a few seconds of this, though, she leaped from the back seat into the front and climbed into the front passenger floor, where she curled up, practically burying her head beneath her paws. She only stayed there for a few seconds, though, before jumping into the back seat again, where she worriedly growled at the massive creatures attacking the car, then jumped back in the front floor. This happened three or four times during the process, but we were sort of in it for the long haul at that point, so I could only pet her try and reassure her that it was okay and that she was a good dog. We think the front passenger floor is her place of refuge, because that's where she used to always ride when she was a small puppy and that's where we found her cowering one day this winter when we parked near the door of a Cracker Barrel and suspect she was startled by the other customers walking past the car or by someone trying to talk to her through the window.
Jump ahead to yesterday. I have an errand, I have a dog that wants to go, I let her in the car, back out of the garage and head down the driveway like normal. Just past the warning flags, Sadie wedged herself atop the arm rest between the two front seats, right in my way.
"Get in the back," I told her. She didn't budge. "Get in the back!" I said, pushing her with my elbow. She remained. "Get in the damned back!!" I shouted. This time, she leaped between the seats and hopped into the front passenger floor, where she spun around facing me, then sat down in her best straight-backed "LOOK, I'M BEING A GOOD DOG" pose and appeared very very concerned. Only then did I notice the beepbeepbeepbeepbeep coming from her collar and realized I'd forgotten to turn off the transmitter.
I stopped the car, pulled the collar off of her and then spent a minute apologizing, saying things like "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Pa did not mean to shock a dog!" while she did the I'm a Good Dog dance all over the front seat.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Zap-Another-Dog
The instructions for our dog-zapper fence indicated that the collar's default setting was at level 1, which only emits a warning beep. It suggested that the collar's correction level be set to level 2 for training, instead of level 4 which provided the maximum voltage. I mentioned this to the wife as we were initially exploring our box of wireless fence. I also read her the part that suggested that level 4 might be necessary for overly energetic dogs and how I thought Sadie might qualify. And while I saw the wife messing with the collar later, I didn't think she'd changed the levels at all.
On the first evening of owning the system, I turned it on and set it for the maximum boundary area (#8) and went outside to trace the safe zone by walking until the collar beeped and then planting a flag along the perimeter. The system actually sets up a shockless warning zone at the outer edge of the safe area where the collar will simply beep. If you stray further than that, the collar will continue beeping and give a warning shock and will continue administering shocks until the collar returns to the safe zone or 30 seconds passes, after which it shuts down. I couldn't tell, of course, if the collar was actually giving off any shocks, just from the beeping, so I stepped across the boundary beyond the warning zone and touched it. It gave off a very strong shock--powerful enough that I jerked my hand away. That would definitely get a dog's attention, but if that was level 2, I'd hate to see level 4.
What I didn't know was that the collar was actually set on level 4. It's not the sort of thing you can tell by looking at it, because changing the levels is done by pressing a single button until the proper number of flashes occur on the collar's LED light, alerting you to the current level. Evidently, the wife had adjusted it to 4 or it was simply set there when we bought it.
Still unaware of the level, I soon saw just how much the dog's attention was captured by level 4 when I allowed her to step across the boundary for a test shock. At first, she just heard the warning beep, telling her she was in the warning area. I told her to come back and, as usual, she ignored me and kept going until the shock kicked in. She yelped, nearly flipped in the air and then practically fell over trying to get away from whatever had clearly just stung her on the neck.
I felt awful. I took her in the house and gave her a Pupperoni and told her she was a good dog. I then sat down with the collar, was horrified when it flashed four times when I tested the setting. I changed it to level 2 and tested that on myself, too. It was still uncomfortable, but far less powerful than level 4.
The wife and I had to do some reconfiguring of the safe-zone to fully encompass our back yard and partially cover the upper part of the front. This basically involved moving the transmitter from the garage to the laundry room. After that we planted flags around it, noticing how our safe zone flags seemed to match up nicely with the ones remaining from the previous owners--which might mean they had the same system. The only problem area seemed to be at the driveway, where there was something of a dead zone that refused to beep. In fact, the wife walked most of the way down the driveway before the collar kicked in. We thought this might be a problem.
Now, while it was certainly not a fun experience for Sadie to be shocked at level 4, it might have been a good thing in the long run. It only took two real training sessions from us and she pretty much knew to stay away from the flags. I don't think she was even shocked a second time, as she had learned to associate the beep from her collar with "get the hell out" and would run back toward the house whenever she heard it.
After her second training session, I thought she seemed pretty clear on the whole stay away from the flag system, so I decided to do an early road test and see how things went. I unclipped her leash and let her free. For about half an hour, Sadie stayed with me in the back yard and played and chased the water stream from the hose while I was trying to water the grass seed I'd planted. Then, just as I was ready to head back inside, she looked over toward the neighbor's house, did the "I'm not on my line" math and bolted. I walked to the edge of the house to see how this played. Sadie made it all the way in front of the next door neighbor's house before the collar began shocking her, at which point she gave a sudden jerk, stopped and looked back in my direction.
"Come on back, Sadie," I called. She then turned and ran as fast as she could back to our yard, then came up to me and did the "Am I a good dog?" dance.
"That's the way it's gonna be," I told her.
We've now had a week of solid use for the wireless fence and we still like it a lot. Sadie does, too, cause now she can go pretty much where she wants and has a lot of space to run and play. She still tests the system now and again. For instance, being a smart dog, she's discovered the dead-zone in the driveway and has dashed through it a few times. She can usually make it nearly to the bottom of the driveway before the collar kicks in. This gives her an extra long run back up the hill to get in the safe zone, assuring her a couple of shocks in the process.
We've also discovered that instinct overpowers pain, as she willingly ran through the barrier in pursuit of some deer. She got 30 seconds of shocks with that one, but kept right on chasing her adversary until the collar shut down. She returned to the yard, soon enough, and the collar kicked back on. I suppose if we have too many such incidents we'll have to raise her level to 3.
Finally, we don't think we'll have to buy a battery backup for the system after all. I think PetSafe has made some improvements over the one our vet told us about, because we've unplugged the transmitter to move it while Sadie was wearing the collar and there were no accompanying beeps or shocks.
If any of you were on the fence about buying such a product, it certainly has my household's endorsement. It's pricey to be sure, but far cheaper than installing an actual fence around a half-acre.
On the first evening of owning the system, I turned it on and set it for the maximum boundary area (#8) and went outside to trace the safe zone by walking until the collar beeped and then planting a flag along the perimeter. The system actually sets up a shockless warning zone at the outer edge of the safe area where the collar will simply beep. If you stray further than that, the collar will continue beeping and give a warning shock and will continue administering shocks until the collar returns to the safe zone or 30 seconds passes, after which it shuts down. I couldn't tell, of course, if the collar was actually giving off any shocks, just from the beeping, so I stepped across the boundary beyond the warning zone and touched it. It gave off a very strong shock--powerful enough that I jerked my hand away. That would definitely get a dog's attention, but if that was level 2, I'd hate to see level 4.
What I didn't know was that the collar was actually set on level 4. It's not the sort of thing you can tell by looking at it, because changing the levels is done by pressing a single button until the proper number of flashes occur on the collar's LED light, alerting you to the current level. Evidently, the wife had adjusted it to 4 or it was simply set there when we bought it.
Still unaware of the level, I soon saw just how much the dog's attention was captured by level 4 when I allowed her to step across the boundary for a test shock. At first, she just heard the warning beep, telling her she was in the warning area. I told her to come back and, as usual, she ignored me and kept going until the shock kicked in. She yelped, nearly flipped in the air and then practically fell over trying to get away from whatever had clearly just stung her on the neck.
I felt awful. I took her in the house and gave her a Pupperoni and told her she was a good dog. I then sat down with the collar, was horrified when it flashed four times when I tested the setting. I changed it to level 2 and tested that on myself, too. It was still uncomfortable, but far less powerful than level 4.
The wife and I had to do some reconfiguring of the safe-zone to fully encompass our back yard and partially cover the upper part of the front. This basically involved moving the transmitter from the garage to the laundry room. After that we planted flags around it, noticing how our safe zone flags seemed to match up nicely with the ones remaining from the previous owners--which might mean they had the same system. The only problem area seemed to be at the driveway, where there was something of a dead zone that refused to beep. In fact, the wife walked most of the way down the driveway before the collar kicked in. We thought this might be a problem.
Now, while it was certainly not a fun experience for Sadie to be shocked at level 4, it might have been a good thing in the long run. It only took two real training sessions from us and she pretty much knew to stay away from the flags. I don't think she was even shocked a second time, as she had learned to associate the beep from her collar with "get the hell out" and would run back toward the house whenever she heard it.
After her second training session, I thought she seemed pretty clear on the whole stay away from the flag system, so I decided to do an early road test and see how things went. I unclipped her leash and let her free. For about half an hour, Sadie stayed with me in the back yard and played and chased the water stream from the hose while I was trying to water the grass seed I'd planted. Then, just as I was ready to head back inside, she looked over toward the neighbor's house, did the "I'm not on my line" math and bolted. I walked to the edge of the house to see how this played. Sadie made it all the way in front of the next door neighbor's house before the collar began shocking her, at which point she gave a sudden jerk, stopped and looked back in my direction.
"Come on back, Sadie," I called. She then turned and ran as fast as she could back to our yard, then came up to me and did the "Am I a good dog?" dance.
"That's the way it's gonna be," I told her.
We've now had a week of solid use for the wireless fence and we still like it a lot. Sadie does, too, cause now she can go pretty much where she wants and has a lot of space to run and play. She still tests the system now and again. For instance, being a smart dog, she's discovered the dead-zone in the driveway and has dashed through it a few times. She can usually make it nearly to the bottom of the driveway before the collar kicks in. This gives her an extra long run back up the hill to get in the safe zone, assuring her a couple of shocks in the process.
We've also discovered that instinct overpowers pain, as she willingly ran through the barrier in pursuit of some deer. She got 30 seconds of shocks with that one, but kept right on chasing her adversary until the collar shut down. She returned to the yard, soon enough, and the collar kicked back on. I suppose if we have too many such incidents we'll have to raise her level to 3.
Finally, we don't think we'll have to buy a battery backup for the system after all. I think PetSafe has made some improvements over the one our vet told us about, because we've unplugged the transmitter to move it while Sadie was wearing the collar and there were no accompanying beeps or shocks.
If any of you were on the fence about buying such a product, it certainly has my household's endorsement. It's pricey to be sure, but far cheaper than installing an actual fence around a half-acre.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Zap-A-Dog
Over the past year, our dog Sadie has grown from a timid puppy, afraid to leave our sight, into a large dog more than eager to flee the confines of our yard and dash about the countryside chasing all manner of creatures--usually her arch-enemies the local deer. It's not such a bad thing, as our neighborhood is kind of out in the woods without a lot of heavy traffic. However, her escapes do cause us some concern that she might do things to annoy the neighbors, chiefly going to the house of the attorney next door and chasing his dogs up and down their fence line with all three barking furiously (though still playfully). We've really wanted some manner in which we could keep her in our yard, beyond our usual tactic of tying her to her pull line or keeping her on a leash.
Fencing would work, but we don't really want a fence, nor do we want to do the work to put one in. We also looked at invisible fencing, which many of our other neighbors have, but that too requires a good deal of work, not to mention expense. We knew that the previous owners of the house had something like that at one time, because we found their little marker flags all over the yard when we moved in, but we've never found any sign of the wire that usually accompanies them. Then there was the matter of whether or not an invisible fence would even work on Sadie. The wife has had some experience with invisible fence systems and St. Bernards in the past. She once wired up the entire back pasture of her grandmother's house in order to let her former St. Bernard, Honeybee, run free. Once the system was hooked up and the collar placed on the dog's neck, Honeybee stepped across the wire line, twitched at the shock, looked annoyed and then bounded away. It never worked. We would hate to burn money and calories on setting up such a fence only to have it fail to work on our St. Bernard mix.
Then, on one of our near daily visits to Lowes, I saw a product that I hadn't before known to exist: a wireless invisible fence. This product purported to be a radio transmitter that would establish a half an acre area in which a dog could run free, but which if the dog attempted to leave would cause the accompanying collar to give off a warning beep and then a shock. The kit cost three times as much as a wire-based fencing system, but the more we thought about it the more we were of the opinion that it would be worth paying that much more if we didn't have to hassle with burying damned wires. Furthermore, the system was portable, which would make keeping Sadie in line at the in-laws house a much easier prospect.
During our last visit to my in-laws house, we took nigh on the entire animal population of our house, with Sadie and Avie sharing space in the car. My sister-in-law and her family also visited that same weekend and brought their two dogs and cat. This, too, was great, as Sadie doesn't get to play with other dogs much and she loves it, so we were prepped for a dog party. What complicated matters, however, is that it poured rain almost the entire weekend and my in-laws were in the very earliest stages of resodding their yard. In other words, Dog Fest `09 became Mud-Dog Fest `09. My sister-in-law's two dogs are very well-behaved creatures and stuck around the house. Sadie, however, likes to roam and frequently ventured out into the neighborhood and toward the nearby highway, whenever she was set free to run with her cousins (or whenever one of the wife's cousins dropped by and thoughtfully let her out of the house). By the end of the weekend my white dog was red with mud and no amount of bathing seemed to help. And, a mere two hours before we were scheduled to hit the road back to WV, Sadie found something dead and spent a good ten minutes rolling in it. This made our drive back a miserable affair.
So you can see that the thought of a wireless fence system that could help prevent some of the above was an attractive one. But, again, would it work?
While we stood there considering the purchase, a guy who was standing nearby piped up, saying, "Hey, if you're thinking about buying one of those, I just wanted to let you know something," he began. We over and noticed that the man happened to be our trusted and much-liked veterinarian. He went on to tell us that the wireless fence was a very good product, but if we lived in an area prone to power outages we should be cautious because if the power went out it would shock the dog. He said his parents used the same system, but had also purchased battery backups so their dogs would not be harmed. We thanked him for his advice and bought the wireless fence immediately.
The instructions for the system suggested that it would take a good two weeks of thrice-daily training sessions in order to make an average dog understand where it could and couldn't go in the yard. I'm proud to say that ours had it down within a period of 12 hours and 2.5 training sessions. She's a very smart cookie, but part of it might stem from a poorly planned .5 of a training session I started with.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
Fencing would work, but we don't really want a fence, nor do we want to do the work to put one in. We also looked at invisible fencing, which many of our other neighbors have, but that too requires a good deal of work, not to mention expense. We knew that the previous owners of the house had something like that at one time, because we found their little marker flags all over the yard when we moved in, but we've never found any sign of the wire that usually accompanies them. Then there was the matter of whether or not an invisible fence would even work on Sadie. The wife has had some experience with invisible fence systems and St. Bernards in the past. She once wired up the entire back pasture of her grandmother's house in order to let her former St. Bernard, Honeybee, run free. Once the system was hooked up and the collar placed on the dog's neck, Honeybee stepped across the wire line, twitched at the shock, looked annoyed and then bounded away. It never worked. We would hate to burn money and calories on setting up such a fence only to have it fail to work on our St. Bernard mix.
Then, on one of our near daily visits to Lowes, I saw a product that I hadn't before known to exist: a wireless invisible fence. This product purported to be a radio transmitter that would establish a half an acre area in which a dog could run free, but which if the dog attempted to leave would cause the accompanying collar to give off a warning beep and then a shock. The kit cost three times as much as a wire-based fencing system, but the more we thought about it the more we were of the opinion that it would be worth paying that much more if we didn't have to hassle with burying damned wires. Furthermore, the system was portable, which would make keeping Sadie in line at the in-laws house a much easier prospect.
During our last visit to my in-laws house, we took nigh on the entire animal population of our house, with Sadie and Avie sharing space in the car. My sister-in-law and her family also visited that same weekend and brought their two dogs and cat. This, too, was great, as Sadie doesn't get to play with other dogs much and she loves it, so we were prepped for a dog party. What complicated matters, however, is that it poured rain almost the entire weekend and my in-laws were in the very earliest stages of resodding their yard. In other words, Dog Fest `09 became Mud-Dog Fest `09. My sister-in-law's two dogs are very well-behaved creatures and stuck around the house. Sadie, however, likes to roam and frequently ventured out into the neighborhood and toward the nearby highway, whenever she was set free to run with her cousins (or whenever one of the wife's cousins dropped by and thoughtfully let her out of the house). By the end of the weekend my white dog was red with mud and no amount of bathing seemed to help. And, a mere two hours before we were scheduled to hit the road back to WV, Sadie found something dead and spent a good ten minutes rolling in it. This made our drive back a miserable affair.
So you can see that the thought of a wireless fence system that could help prevent some of the above was an attractive one. But, again, would it work?
While we stood there considering the purchase, a guy who was standing nearby piped up, saying, "Hey, if you're thinking about buying one of those, I just wanted to let you know something," he began. We over and noticed that the man happened to be our trusted and much-liked veterinarian. He went on to tell us that the wireless fence was a very good product, but if we lived in an area prone to power outages we should be cautious because if the power went out it would shock the dog. He said his parents used the same system, but had also purchased battery backups so their dogs would not be harmed. We thanked him for his advice and bought the wireless fence immediately.
The instructions for the system suggested that it would take a good two weeks of thrice-daily training sessions in order to make an average dog understand where it could and couldn't go in the yard. I'm proud to say that ours had it down within a period of 12 hours and 2.5 training sessions. She's a very smart cookie, but part of it might stem from a poorly planned .5 of a training session I started with.
(TO BE CONTINUED...)
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