ADMIN – Hi Nicole,

Untrained, that is very possible, which is why the training component is vital. With the training, you can teach the dog that the proper response to the correction is to turn and retreat. If taught in a structured way, the dog will assume that turning and retreating is the only way to escape the correction and will have idea that running through is a possibility.

If we need to, we can also make the fence a little wider than usual during the training phase, and make the correction a little stronger. However, these measures are rarely needed and I would only take them if the regular training was not proceeding according to plan.

ADMIN – Hi Mac,

A good rule of thumb is that 1500 feet of wire will enclose about 2 acres. For a high energy dog, I would want at least five feet on either side of the wire, at least for the training. You are lucky to have a nice big yard, so you can make the boundary wider if you want without taking away too much space from the dog. Wide boundaries are always better, because the dog takes longer to run through it makes training easier.

Admin- Hi Lucy,

We recommend the PetSafe Little dog system. A PetSafe system is a good multi-dog system. You will be able to purchase the collar that fits your dogs best and each collar will have independent correction levels for each dog. I would use the PetSafe little dog collar for the Pomeranian mix. I would bundle two additional PetSafe stubborn dog collars for the larger Lab and Pitbull mix. You will be able to adjust the signal strength projecting off of the wire anywhere from 2-12 feet.

ADMIN – Hi Janine,
I’d recommend the PetSafe Deluxe fence with 2 additional Deluxe fence collars. This way, you can set each collar to it’s own correction strength. As for training, it is important to find a way to contain your dogs in-between training sessions. It takes about 3 weeks to complete training and you’ll need to train each dog separately. If they are not contained in-between training, it will be difficult to complete training and experience 100% containment.

ADMIN – Hi Khali,

For your two cocker spaniels I’d recommend the Innotek IUC 4100 fence. The collar will fit them well being that it is not bulky. Plus, it is rechargeable which is a great feature. You can attach the dog fence wire to your existing fence, which will work very well. If you are fencing only the back yard, I recommend utilizing the back yard only layout. This means either elevating the boundary wire that runs along the back of your house into the gutters so that your dogs can go underneath it out of range of the signal. Or, you can simply wrap the wire around the front of your home and include your house in the loop. This will also give your dogs access in and out of the back door of your home. Here’s a link to see these layouts illustrated: http://www.dogfencediy.com/installation/plan/#backyard

ADMIN – Hi Aaron,

Thanks for the feedback! The best plan is to set your boundary to as wide as you’re yard will allow that still gives your Coon Hound ample yard space to run and play. If you combined your IUC 5100 with your actual fence, you can have a tighter boundary that simply keeps your Coon Hound away from the fence. But it’s good to set up the long-term boundary upfront for the training so your Coon Hound will know what to expect.

These guys are a primitive breed, so can be very stubborn, sneaky and very very smart. They tend to respond a lot better to positive reinforcement rather than correction, so I’m a little concerned about relying on the negative reinforcement. One of my boys is particularly sensitive to correction – he once cowered for about an hour because I *shook my finger* at him, though they’re all pretty sensitive. Would I need to put collars on all three of them, or just my escape-prone girl? Any suggestions on if their hairlessness would impact how the fence works? Also, there are a couple of gates that the gardeners will need to open, but that I don’t want the dogs escaping out of. Is that a problem?

Thanks much! I think one of these systems will likely be able to solve my problem. Elizabeth

ADMIN – Hi Elizabeth,

If only one dog is escaping, you only need to put the collar on the one dog.

I would run the dog fence along the fence (ziptie it or staple it to the fence), and then go underground when you get to the gated sections. That way the dogs cannot escape if the gate is left open.

You are right to calibrate the training to your dog. If they are sensitive to negative and respond well to positive, use that approach in the training. Lean more heavily on the reward for returning to you when they hear the beep in Step One of the Training. It is however important that she gets the correction at least once, you need a bit of negative in there to get complete compliance.

With hairless dogs, you need to take a little more care to check the collar area everyday for the first two weeks, then weekly to check that the dog isn’t having any kind of allergic reaction to the collar prongs. It is rare, but if it happens we want to catch it early before it turns into a sore.

ADMIN – Hi Tom,

If you do the initial training, breaking through should not be a problem, no matter what lies on the other side of the boundary. When a dog is trained on the system, they don’t realize that going through is a possibility. They assume the only way to ‘switch off’ the correction is to turn and retreat back into the yard. If you are particularly concerned about something like your dog chasing critters, we want to work with that trigger in the third stage of the training. We will use whatever they find tempting, to teach them that the boundary rules need to be obeyed no matter how excited their state.

http://www.dogfencediy.com/training/step_three/

For a lab/pointer on 3.5 acres, the Innotek IUC-4100 or the SportDog SDF-100A would be a good choice.

ADMIN – Hi Megan,

There are systems that have a battery backup (the Innotek IUC-4100 and the IUC-5100). The battery backup kicks in when there is a power failure and gets you 2-3 days of power before the batteries need changing.

In practice this is not a huge issue. As long as the power failures don’t drag on for several days, the dogs don’t figure out that the fence is down and stay away from the boundary out of habit.

The Innotek 5100 would be a good choice if you want a remote trainer. Those two dogs are going to have a big difference in size, so you are going to want to use a resistor to reduce the correction on the Terrier’s collar.

ADMIN – Hi Holly,

Many folks use the dog fence in that ways to reinforce a regular fence. You can indeed mount the wire on the existing fence. The distance the dog can get to the fence can be adjusted using a control on the base station. With a 25 lb dog and a physical fence already in place, you probably want to set it so the collar so it triggers 2-3 feet away from the base of the fence. Less than that and it would be hard for you to train the dog. So she would not be able to get as close to the fence as the other dogs.

You could also put the wire on the other side of the fence as you suggest, but you would still want to keep the dog 1-2 feet back from the fence.