No Dig Method
You do not absolutely need to bury the boundary wire. You can lay the wire along the ground and fasten it in place with lawn staples (also known as sod staples, landscaping staples or grass staples). The boundary cable is surprisingly resilient and can stand up to light traffic, and even vehicular traffic. Even professionals will often not bury the wire when the installation is for a very large area, particularly a wooded area where it is difficult to operate a mechanical trencher will often just have the boundary wire secured on the ground. Often over three to five years the cable will bury itself as lawn grows over it or fall deposits stack up and decompose.
The advantage of the no dig method is that it considerably speeds up installation. But the wire is visible so it is the less attractive than the traditional burial methods. On the surface the wire is also more susceptible to breaks especially due to lawn mowers and edgers, but also critters such as squirrels which will occasionally chew on the wire. But being on the surface, the boundary wire is also easier to repair.
To install the cable with the no dig method, you will need to lay out the boundary cable just as you would for a normal installation. If you use boundary cable that is green for grassed areas and black for wooded areas it will be less noticeable.
Now use lawn staples (pictured right) to fix the cable to the ground at one yard intervals. In heavily trafficked areas you will want the staples to be more frequent. You can usually drive them into the ground by hand, but you may need to gently use a hammer. Do not hammer them over zealously otherwise you may damage the boundary wire.
To get across driveways and pavement, you can cut and bury as we described here. But you can also just lay the cable across the driveway, preferably in an expansion joint where it will be protected.
You can buy lawn staples at most landscaping and home improvement stores.
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Can I ziptie the wire to the chainlink fence? My fence is a 3 ft. tall fence and my dog climbs it. I have thought about just taking a lamp cord and hooking it to the fence for a 110v shock (just kidding!)…. I need to do something to protect him from cars and upset neighbors!
Thanks! M.
Hi, I have a quick question. Is it a good idea to put the wire down and not use the lawn staples but just bury it in a couple of places. We have 20 acres and will probably try to cover about 2 acres for the dog’s boundary.
Thanks. Btw, very helpful website!
Michael – LOL – ziptying the wire to a fence is a great way to get your system installed fast.
DSWUZ – in areas where the wire is not buried, I would use at least a few lawn staples to hold everything in place. One every 10 yards is fine. If you are concerned about metal staples in the ground, you can get some great biodegradable staples made of sugar (made by DuPont) at the hardware store.
can i run wire thru a garden hose across the driveway
ADMIN – Hi Debbie,
You can indeed run the wire through an old garden hose. That should help protect the wire from the cars.
What about running the wire through flowerbeds. I have read that it is important for the wire to continually make contact with the ground. Going through the flowerbed, the wire would be on top of the pinestraw.
MS
Thank you for your time
ADMIN – Hi MS,
There is no requirement that you make contact with the ground. Laying it on top of pinestraw would be fine.
I saw the comment about running the wire through a garden hose — would it work to run the wire through PVC?
ADMIN – Hi Bill,
It does work just as well run through a PVC pipe.
We are installing your sysytem in our yard. My husband and I are weighing the no dig options. We have two young kids and are surrounded by neighbors whoes lawnservice equipment may ride over our wire. Will the no dig work for us?
ADMIN – Hi Lee,
Burying usually works best where there is a lawn because of the lawnmower factor. The sweet spot for “no dig” is really in areas that will not be mown. But, you can do it on grass: here’s how:
I would first cut the grass pretty short, then staple the wire as closely to the ground as you can, and let the grass grow back out. After, that you should cut the grass at the maximum height. Over time the grass will work it’s way over the wire and “pull it down” under the shoots.
You will definitely get a couple of breaks where the lawnmower catches a stray wire. But, finding and repairing the breaks will be pretty easy.
How deep does the wire have to be buried? We also live in an area were snow is on the ground 3 to 4 months of the year so will the Petsafe system work properly during the winter months and how will the wiring hold up when buried in frozen ground and wet ground (when the snow / ice melt)?
ADMIN – Hi Dennis,
The wire only has to be buried half an inch underground. All you are trying to do is get the wire protected from the evil lawnmower.
The systems will work even in the freeze and the thaw. When there is a heavy accumulation of snow, you may want to turn up the boundary width, to make sure the signal is getting through all that snow.
Try and make sure the control box is kept in a place that stay above freeze. Repeated freezing and thawing will reduce the unit’s life span.
hi, just purchased a 4100, i have 8 acres with 5 strand barb wire & t post fence. i wanted to zip tie wire to fence, what height would be best? also, is the 20 guage wire big enough for that distance? is making rounded corners a must? all my corners are 90 degrees. i buried 1/2″ pvc across gravel drive, how deep can you bury? thanks donny
ADMIN – Hi Donny,
(1) The height is not particularly important. You can adjust the boundary width to compensate for the wire being high or low. Ideally the wire would be at the height of the dog’s neck (where the receiver collar lies). But, again this is not critical because you can turn up the signal strength to compensate.
(2) 20 gauge is fine for anything up to 25 acres on the Innotek IUC-4100.
(3) Try to round the corners, if you don’t you can get some signal loss in the corners. I you are going to do a sharp turn, test it to make sure there are no signal cancellation issues in the corner — you don’t want a hole in the fence!
(4) The depth you can bury depends on how high you have the boundary width turned up. I wouldn’t not bury it more than a couple of inches underground. Again if you are concerned, just test that spot with the collar to make sure it is not too deep.
We have 5 wooded acres so the no-dig method is appealing. How much “critter” issues should we expect. We have an abundance of squirrels. Will we be constantly repairing chewed wire?
ADMIN – Hi Amy,
Critters do ocassionally chew through wire, but not often (it is not tasty), But with 5 acres, I would expect to get one break a year from some source.
Two questions: 1) Is the frequency strength diminished the deeper the cable is buried? 2) I have a log fence surrounding most of my property to which I planned to staple the cable, instead of burying it. Will this method be just as reliable as burying?
ADMIN – Hi Micah
(1) The strength of the signal is weaker when buried deep underground, so you usually turn up the boundary width to compensate when you bury the wire.
(2) Stapling the wire to an existing fence works great, it is just as reliable as burying.
I would like to use the above-ground method but will I have trouble putting the lawn staples into frozen ground or will they go in ok?
ADMIN – Hi Pam,
You should be able to bang a few staples in, but it would also work if you just weighed down the wire in a couple of places with a brick or rock. All you are trying to do is stop the wire wandering around and keeping it fixed in a spot.
I just had a question? I was thinking of buying this product for my 70# goldendoodle. She is hopping our chain link fence alot and I was wondering if it would be enough of a shock to keep her in? She already wears a petsafe bark collar that doesnt give off enough of a shock for her! I was also wondering how u would install the invisible fence if u already have an exsisting chain link fence?
ADMIN – Hi Cara,
Especially with a golden doodle, I would be very surprised if the correction was insufficient. I usually find that the dog does not properly feel the correction, because the probes aren’t getting good contact with the skin, it can be really tricky to get it through their fur. Is the dog showing any reaction to the bark collar? If not, I suspect, we may need to trim her fur a little with some scissors where the probes contact, then put the collar on and use your fingers to make sure we have contact between the skin and the fur. You will probably need to move some fur out of the way. If you get a dog fence, the Innotek 4100 would be a good choice, because it has a little sensor that can tell you if the collar is on right. Again, it would really surprise me if you needed to go higher than the medium correction level.
If you already have a fence, I would just weave the wire through the chain link, or zip-tie it in place. That should save you a lot of installation time and get you right into the training quickly.
Is there a store that you can buy the staples at, like home depot or something?
ADMIN – Hi Karen,
You can get lawn staples at nearly any home improvement store (Home Depot, Loewes, Ace, etc). They are sometimes called sod staples. You can also get them in our store in the accessories section. They are cheap, about $10 for 100.
I would like to go over the driveway at about 12 feet above the ground from tree to tree. Is this too high for the system to work?
ADMIN – Hi Kurt,
To get a boundary that is wide enough at ground level, you are going to need the boundary to be about 15 feet wide which you will not be able to do with the current systems. Also, unless you have a really large yard you are not going to want to have a 15 foot wide boundary.
GREAT website BTW!!! Our property is almost completely wooded and situated on a mountainside with mostly mountainous terrain. Could we “install” our fence with the no-dig method using garden hoses through the most rocky areas? And would we then be able to lay a rock on top to hold the hose/wire in place? Many spots will not allow staples, Also – would a wireless systems work for our “hilly” terrain? We like the portability of the wireless to other locations as we visit friends but I’ve heard it is not suitable for high to low hilly terrain….
ADMIN – Hi J,
Running the wire through garden hose works well in places where you think the wire could be damaged by the terrain. Weighing the wire down with rocks works well whether you protect it with the hose or not. I would definitely avoid wireless in hilly terrain. It does not work well at the best of times! Appreciate the compliment.
I have 4 dogs all different sizes (and shapes!) and own 100 acres, I never thought I would be able to let them run the whole 100 acres, or even being able to take them on our walks without having the worry that they will run off the property (they are actually pretty good already). I never knew you didn’t have to bury the wire, this in itself is great news.
Your website has been so much help, and greatly appreciated.
Suanne
We have 3 sides of our fenced with a six ft fence. Is there a way to install it only on one side of the yard?
ADMIN – Hi JJO,
The dog fence boundary wire does need to be a complete loop. So you have a couple of options:
(1) run a long thin loop along the one side of the yard where you need it (keeping the two parallel wires six feet apart), OR
(2) running the wire along the one side where you need it, then high along the fence on the sides where you don’t need it. Running it high up should allow the dogs to get right up to the fence without getting the correction because of the vertical height.
I plan to do a two acre area that is heavily wooded and fairly steep terrain. Can I run all the wire in 1/2″ irrigation tubing, burying where necessary? This should help prevent having to chase wire breaks from rodents and falling tree limbs.
Hi Damian,
Irrigation tubing works great. You can also use old garden hose pipe if you have it lying around.
Can it be run through the culvert at the end of our driveway? it is the typical 10-12 inch drianpipe. I am considering the no dig route and wonder if driving over a hose will degrade the hose to the point that it is no longer protecting the wire.
ADMIN – Hi Dave,
You can run the wire through the culvert provided it is not buried too deep (say 1-2 feet). The issue is that when the wire is too far down in only one place you need to turn up the signal strength a lot to get a decent signal in that place – but that leads to the boundary being too wide everywhere else.
Hosepipe seems to be pretty resilient to being run over. You typically will get a good five years before you need to replace that section or wire and protective hosepipe.