Electric Fence

[Peter Stahl]

Has anyone used a electric fence to keep their dog in the yard? My daughter has a pit bull and she keeps escaping. She has a 6 foot fence plus a wired dog fence with the collar. Except using a guard tower I'm think maybe putting up a electric fence like they use for cattle but don't know how dangerous it would be for a dog. 2 of the 4 sides of the fence belong to the neighbors so we can put anything on them. Any ideas? The bad thing about the dog is she is a barker and when she see's someone she'll stand there and bark. A Pit Bull staring at you barking can look threatening.

[Greg Portland]

How is the pitbull bypassing a 6ft fence? Our neighbor had a beagle with digging problems so we put some pressure treated 2x6s into the ground on-edge.

[Joe Vincent 63]

We use en electric fence successfully with a variety of setters. With large dogs such as a pit bull, they sometimes use two collars for the initial shock to ensure they respect it as those dogs have so much muscle. Trainer said they have very good success with those types of breeds.

[glenn bradley]

LOML had a jumper too; cleared the 6' block wall, no problem. She also would terrorize smaller dogs (in their own yards) once she got out which was odd as it was her only poor behavior. She just didn't like things that looked like dogs but were the size of rabbits.

She is now too old for such things but, back in the day I ran a wire around the top of the wall on stand-offs that held it a few inches to the inside of the yard. The 5 acre shock-box didn't stop her until I got a deeper grounding rod (should have believed the directions). She hit that thing once, . . . bit her tongue and ran around in circles yipping her head off for about 3 minutes. She never tried that again in all these years. We left it off ever since. Now that she is old enough to have trouble getting up to be petted I guess I could take down the wire.

Worked great. Well worth the money.

[Peter Stahl]

How is the pitbull bypassing a 6ft fence? Our neighbor had a beagle with digging problems so we put some pressure treated 2x6s into the ground on-edge.
She climbed up a wood pile once and jumped over but she can just jump and hang on to the top and bark at the kids playing basketball. Yesterday she went under.

[Peter Stahl]

We use en electric fence successfully with a variety of setters. With large dogs such as a pit bull, they sometimes use two collars for the initial shock to ensure they respect it as those dogs have so much muscle. Trainer said they have very good success with those types of breeds.


She's sores on her neck from taking shocks. My daughter has a male who is very laid back and doesn't any desire to break out. Both dogs were rescue dogs.

[Joe Angrisani]

Some dogs have to lose the freedom of the roaming backyard. Put her on a 15' chain for a few months. Dogs aren't dumb; she'll figure it out when she comes off the chain and screws up. Her running will put her back on the chain for another month, and it will start to sink in.

[Jim O'Dell]

I've had a couple over the years. Worked very well. The current one, the heaviest duty one I've bought to date, never has worked for some reason, and I have 4 ground rods, one of which is the main house one, and 3 more that are 4' deep. I think I need to redo the wiring, but we haven't had a rescue jumper in a while, so it keeps getting pushed off. Jim.

[Brian Vaughn]

We used one for years with a golden retriever that would climb the chain link fence. Like Glenn, we ran a series of vertical standoffs (In our case it was simply wooden stakes threaded into the chain link) and attached the wire to the top of those. Problem stopped overnight. Of course, as kids, we occasionally hit the wire ourselves and found out why. ;o)

[Lee Schierer]

The underground fence systems only work if the dog is trained as to what to do when it hears the beep before the shock occurs. You have to show the dog that when it hears the beep it must turn back into the yard. It takes weeks to properly train a dog to do this. Too many people just buy the fence, install it and turn the dog loose with the collar on and figure that the dog will figure it out. It doesn't work that way.

Electrifying the back yard isn't going to solve the root problem either, only training will. Most likely this dog is the dominant dog in the house, including people. Your daughter will have to put the dog on a lease and take it into the back yard. When it makes any notice of the kids playing, she will need to jerk the leash sharply and tell the dog no. Again this will take multiple repetitions and is best done after exercising the dog so it is a little tired. Repeat the exercise as necessary until the behavior stops. She won't hurt the dogs feelings and it won't love her any less. She has to become the pack leader and take charge of her dogs.

Pit bulls have a bad reputation and she could be working toward some really bad trouble it she doesn't get her dog under control.

[Joe Angrisani]

The underground fence systems only work if the dog is trained as to what to do when it hears the beep before the shock occurs. You have to show the dog that when it hears the beep it must turn back into the yard. It takes weeks to properly train a dog to do this....

And then it takes two more weeks for the dog to realize he can sit where there is "beep-but-no-shock" and kill the battery. Then he can mosey past the shockline, free and clear. :cool:

[Scott T Smith]

We have electric fencing here on the farm, not just for the dogs but also for the horses. 90% of the dogs really respect the electric fence once that they have been zapped. For some reason, some of them are able to sense the pulses, and I've seen them time a run through the fence to occur in-between the pulses.

By and large they work well. Buy a more powerful one than you think that you need, as hair can be an insulator and you need something with a lot of power.

[Lee Schierer]

And then it takes two more weeks for the dog to realize he can sit where there is "beep-but-no-shock" and kill the battery. Then he can mosey past the shockline, free and clear. :cool:

Some systems like the Innotek brand won't allow the dog to linger in the beep zone, they zap if the dog stays in the beep zone too long. There is also an indicator light that indicates the level of charge on the rechargeable collars.

[Greg Just]

I have owned a couple of different types. In a fenced in yard, I used the hotwire that was above ground and was located about 2-3 feet from the fence. The dogs quickly learned not to mess with the hotwire. The would not chase a ball that had rolled near the fence. In my current yard with no fence, we had an Invisible Fence installed and that wire is buried in the ground. With the Invisble fence, it came with professional training for 4 sessions over about a 3 week period. I am happy to say that my lab has never run out of the yard. She wears a collar that beeps a few times to warn her that she is close to the boundery and she moves away. I guess my one complaint is that you have to buy a proprietary designed battery for the collar.

[ray hampton]

I install a electric fence to keep mine dogs from straying and when the fence went dead, I walk the fence line half dozen times trying to find what was running the electric to ground, finally I noticed something that were reflect the sunlight, a spider had lay a strand of his web over the wire that acted like a good ground

[Dan Hintz]

And then it takes two more weeks for the dog to realize he can sit where there is "beep-but-no-shock" and kill the battery. Then he can mosey past the shockline, free and clear. :cool:
Or the buried fenceline is installed with sharp corners instead of sweeping round ones... the dog quickly realized if she approached the corners at a 45 degree angle, she could walk right through without a beep or shock.

[John Lohmann]

It worked for us for about a year. Then our dog, a Golden retriever learned to run as fast as he could the shock didn't last that long. He would come back home, but he stayed in the front yard. Nowhere near the fence.