Invisible Dog Fence

Many dog owners are faced with tough choices when it comes to containing their dogs: Should they keep the dog chained or in a small fenced pen? Or do they risk letting it run free and perhaps leaving the yard and possibly getting run over. Using an invisible dog fence is another alternative.

Building a regular fence for a dog is sometimes not an option because of covenants in certain neighborhoods. Additionally, wood or chain link fences can cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. And worse yet, they are not always “dog proof”. Some dogs may dig under the fence or even climb over them. Or the fence may just be unwanted for esthetic purposes. An invisible fence solves all these problems…and is inexpensive!

Our Experience with an Invisible Dog Fence

We moved to a new house on ten wooded acres. It would have been dog heaven for our 4 dogs at the time except there was a busy highway just a few hundred yards from the house. We build a chain link dog fence in the back yard for the dogs right away but could not afford to make it very big. We really wanted a dog fence around the entire wooded acreage, but that was out of the question at the time. We decided to try out an invisible dog fence.

We purchased a kit for about $200 and some extra wire (1000 feet total). We strung the wire in a large circle around the house. We did not bury it everywhere since a lot of it was in the woods where we did not mow. We just did our best to get it flat on the ground and then cover it with leaves or a thin layer of dirt. We laid out our invisible dog fence in about 15 minutes. We came back and buried it in certain spots such as the driveway and where we needed to mow. The small control box needed to be in a dry place, so we placed it in our well house. We drilled a small hole in the wall to send both ends of the wire into and connected them to the control box. We turned it on and then tested it.

The kit came with a small tester to make sure the collars worked. But I was not going to put the collar on a dog until I felt how bad it hurt. I held the collar and walked up to the wire. It first started giving me the warning beeps but I kept walking. The shock got my attention! But I would not consider it too painful. Besides, the benefits and safety our new invisible dog fence had to offer for our dogs out-weighed any discomfort they received from the collars.

The kit came with white flags which we placed as signals for the dogs where the wire was. For two weeks we worked with the dogs WITHOUT the wire on. We put a leash on the dogs and would walk them up to the flags and say “Bad Flags” in a very stern voice and then turn them away. We did that over and over throughout the days for about two weeks.

We then turned the invisible fence on. We again walked up to the fence with the dog on a leash. As we got close the collar began beeping, and we said “Bad Flags” but did not turn the dog away. And then the dog would get shocked and we would run with it away from the fence saying, “Bad Flags”. Our different dogs had different reactions to it. Some seemed to be only annoyed by it. Others took it worse. You are supposed to only let the dog get shocked once the first day.

The next day we repeated day one at a different spot along the invisible fence. The dogs did not remember day one and got shocked in the same way. We repeated this one more time later that second day. By day three, they were remembering quite well. In fact, wild horses could not have dragged a couple of the dogs near those flags! The invisible dog fence was working!

By the fourth day, they were all but trained. We were VERY pleased. We could let all the dogs go and not worry about them going across the flags. Of course we did not trust them totally yet, so we always stayed outside with them while they were loose in the yard. But in a few weeks we trusted the dog fence more. We still put the collars on the dogs on a regular basis though. And once in a while one would get too close and get beeped and/or shocked.

Gradually we started thinning the flags out. The dogs did not seem to notice when they were gone. They still respected the invisible boundary. Many people believe an invisible dog fence is inhumane to the dogs. But so is allowing the possibility of them getting run over or keeping them in a small fenced pen. When we see our dogs running and playing freely in our yard, we know it was the right decision!