Comments on: Walking Your Dog

By: Robin Lewis

Robin Lewis — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 21:01:30 +0000

I have a 1 1/2 yr old shepherd /dobe mix. She is well behaved but her insatiable prey instinct has made yard training and the ability to have her accompany me while hiking, biking, skiing etc. off leash impossible. As these were at he top of my wish list for her when I adopted, it has been very disappointing. Never the less, dog and ownwer have learned to live happily within the confines of being leashed at all times. I have, however, done quite a bit of research on wired and wireless fences. I am convinced that her bolting right through (and past) the correction with a wired system, and the slow response of the wireless would be big hurdles during training. Given the fact that she is content on a run (I think she almost knows she can’t control herself and wants to behave) and the fact that a fence wouldn’t help with hiking and the like, it makes me wonder I should settle for the status qou. Or do you think the limitations of either of these systems with a prey instinct like hers can be overcome? I know that she would require remedial attention during phase 3 of training. But since I cannot adequately simulate the real prey she will be exposed to, the only way to train would be to do it when the real thing is present. I see repeated failures so implementing to “one shock/ session” rule would make training short, spotty, and continually interupted while retrieving her, at best. What are my options? Please advise! Thanks a bunch from both of us.

ADMIN – Hi Robin,

German Shepherds and Dobermans can be among the harder dogs to train, because they are often bred to have a high pain threshold. Have you ever noticed that in her temperament. Have you ever uses a shock collar on her? Or have you ever accidently stood on her tail or something like that? We are interested in her reaction, whether she reacted or was very stoic.

I don’t worry about the prey drive issue. Training the dog out of chasing prey should not be a big deal if you have some leverage (like a shock collar or a dog fence collar). The desire to avoid the strange shocking sensation, startles them out of the fixation on the prey and gets them to refocus on the boundary. As you said, the key is doing the training, and I suspect it will be closer to 3 weeks than the typical 2 weeks for her.

The number of shocks per session really depends on the dog’s reaction. We don’t want her overwhelmed. If the dog reacts calmly to the correction, I am comfortable letting them get more than one correction a session. But, at the same time if they keep getting the correction, I would be concerned that either they have no idea what we want them to do – or that the correction is not strong enough for the dog and we need to level up. The correction needs to be high enough that they really want to have nothing to do with the boundary, but not so high that they get overwhelmed and stop learning.

If you want to try a dog fence, for a strong dog like yours with a high prey drive, I would use a PetSafe Stubborn – it has the strongest correction. You won’t necessarily need the higher levels of correction, but it is good to have them there in case you need them.

By: Corey

Corey — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 17:15:47 +0000

Philip, I would not ever recommend leaving a dog with a dog door in an electric fence while you are not home. He could get into trouble while you are away. He could be attacked by a stray dog, or taunted by children, or even run through the boundry, unable to get home. JMO. I have had an underground fence for years and would never recommend to anyone leaving their dog alone in the yard without anyone home.

By: Philip

Philip — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:06:55 +0000

Can my dog associate that there are no boundaries when I put a different collar and leash on him? And is it safe to have a dog door and leave him home alone, how effective is a fence.

ADMIN – Hi Philip,

Some dogs will make the association and understand that the different leash and collar mean they can go through the boundary without getting the correction. Others will never make the connection and will only go through on your command. If you are looking for rough figures, in my experience I would say about 70% figure it out, and 30% don’t.

Once the dog is trained, and you have successfully tested him with some strong temptations (Step 3 of the training) you can leave him home alone.

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:15:23 +0000

Hi,
I take my dogs for a walk by exiting my property out the back through the woods. There is no way to drive the dogs across the boundry because there is no road. I was thinking of making some sort of gate that we exit through. That way the dogs understand that we are exiting in a special spot.

My question is this. Can I install a switch at the gate that interupts the the wire, thus simulating a wire break? Then we walk through the gate into the woods. What do you think, suggestions? Thanks Doug

ADMIN – Hi Doug,

Creating a physical marker like a gate to denote where the dogs can exit with your permission works great. You can install a switch to turn off the fence by breaking the circuit as you suggest. Or you can just take off the correction collars. I prefer taking off the collars because it avoids the dogs getting a correction from the neighbor’s fences while on a walk (probably not an issue in the woods), and because it gives the dogs another physical indicator that they are allowed to go through the fence.

By: sharon

sharon — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 15:31:40 +0000

We have property that is divided by a road. We would like to have a dog fence on the property across the road from our house since it provides much more room for him to roam. Is it possible to train the dog when we have to enter and exit the property everytime? It is impractical to put him in the car and drive him across the road for 2 months. Is there any alternative???

ADMIN – Hi Sharon,

I like to do something very different with the dog when I take them across the boundary during training. You take the collar off and drive the dog over the boundary, or if the dog is small even pick them up and carry them over the boundary. That way they don’t get confused about why they can cross sometimes and not other times.

You can try teaching the dog earlier, but I find that if you do it inside of a month it is often counterproductive, because it takes you longer to teach them the containment basics.