Invisible Fencing

[Holly Paterniti]

As many of you know we had lost our home one year ago on March 17th.  We had fallen victims to preditorial lending and moved into a 2 bedroom apartment with our 2 kids and Bear.  It was difficult at first as we all had to get use to our new surroundings.  I am happy to say that we have adjusted fine and are doing well.

 

Now for the GOOD NEWS!!!  As we sat here in our apartment, we kept on looking for a larger place to live.  And believe me, we saw some doozers, which made start to think we would never find a place or get a break :(  But all of this loss was a blessing in disguise!!!  As I thought all hope was gone, I had found a home where the family who are living in there now were unable to fulfill their lease and we would be able to move into this home. When we went to look at it........we walked in and that was IT!!!  We had to move in because this was  the house we had always wanted.

 

So ok......let me get to my point here as I am sure I am boring everyone looking at this posting.........anyways the house we are going to does not have a fence nor do we want to put one up.  So I have been looking into invisible fencing.

 

Does anyone have any advice on which one to get or prefer?  I would really appreciate all of your suggestions :)  THANKS!!!

[Denise & Hunter!!!]

I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason and I am just so happy that it worked out for you! We have an invisible fence and we also use the in-house room barriers. I know there is a lot of controversy about the electric fences but for us it has been perfect! We have the Innotek Contain & Train iuc-5100 - you can find it on their website at www.innotek.com. I actually purchased it online at a place called PetStreetMall they had at the best price anywhere. I think we aphid $340 and got a room barrier and an extra 50 yards of wire. I have been super happy with Innoteks customer service, I have had to call them twice once for a collar problem and once for a receiver problem and they sent me the replacements Fedex overnight. My husband put ours in himself and we rented the machine from Lowes, they actually make one that cuts the slit in the groun and puts the wirenin for you and it worked great, I think for 4 hours it was around $35 and he was done in about 2 hours total and we have over an acre yard. The room barriers are really nice if you want to keep them out of certain rooms. We don't let Hunter down our hallway to our bathroom or bedrooms, with two girls that are 9 and 12 they just have to many things that are small and easily swallowed that I don't want to take the chance. If you have any other questions about it let me know!!

[Denise & Hunter!!!]

I did do a ton of research between the Invisible Fence Brand and several others and the actual quality and reviews of the Innotek were just as good, if not better, than the invisible fence brand. The downfall if you need someone else to train for you or you don't want to install it yourself. It does come with a training video and if you follow it I think you would be fine. Hunter never leaves the heard, ever, not even for a cat! We don't have any stray a dogs that I have ever seen so that wasn't an issue for us. My father in law bought the same fence we did for his WILD brittney spaniel and he didn't do the training, he gets on my nerves, and did what he called the crash course and he has never had a problem with his at all a either.

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

One other thing I would add from our experience is that if I had to do it over again I would not fence as much of the yard.  We did the entire yard, front and back, as the wire isn't that expensive.  Was just too hard to keep an eye on them having access to both the front and back yard (as I said I was never comfortable with it so I always wanted my eyes on them.  I'd just do the back yard if I had to do it again.  That way I also wouldn't have had the problem with going on walks or taking them in the car and having to put their collars on and off.

[Denise & Hunter!!!]

I do agree about not doing the entirenyard if we were to do it over again. We always say we wouldn't have done our front yard again. our main reason is my husband is like Clark Grizwald with the Christmas lights and she messes up his display lol lol also it would keep her from barking at people walking down the road with their dogs.

[Barbara B., Sasha & Oliver]

Hi Holly.... I installed the "PetSafe" brand of the e-fence and absolutely LOVE IT.  My property was fenced in on 3 sides but needed something to keep Sasha out of the pond, flower beds and the front of the house.  It took about 2 wks. to train her and she know the boundries (marked with flags).  I had garage sales, worked in my front yard, people walking past etc.etc and Sasha never crossed the line (invisible now - I removed the flags) I trust her 110%.  I put the collar on when she goes outside and remove it when she comes in.  I got Oliver in September of last year and when he reached 6 months old I started to train him.  I had to re-purchase the marker flags so he know where the boundries are, and it took him about 2 wks of training also.  I can't stress enough that the training is VERY IMPORTANT... you cannot expect a dog to "know" that they are not supposed to go past a certain mark, flag, line, etc. etc.  you must TRAIN THEM !!!!   The instructions were very easy and elementry it was the best thing I ever did for my two dogs.  Both respect the boundries, they have room to run and play.  The PetSafe brand has 3 level type of warning, first is a beep, then a vibrate then a zap which I did on myself because I would NEVER put anything on my dog that would harm them.  Sasha has never gone past the vibrate mode and Oliver I has gotten zapped once which I have the unit turned down to the lowest setting.  This is just my opinion and what has worked for me.  Good luck and keep in mind that this can only work properly with the training. :)

[Nicole]

We had the invisible brand fence installed and our dog has only broke through one time.  This happened when my son and him were climbing on the big snowbanks in front of the house.  The fence must not have registered, or else Winnie was having too much fun to notice.  We have a good size yard, and I believe the install was $1900.  The trainer came out four times to train, and Winnie got it pretty quickly.  We live in a residential neighborhood with no physical fences, and very slow traffic, because everybody has kids on the street.  The only thing I would do differently, is not include the front of the house.  The reason being that Winnie jumps on people, especially kids.  When my children's friends, or the UPS driver comes up the driveway, she runs from the back of the house to the front and bounces on them like a lunatic.  It's been a struggle for us to teach her not to do this, because she won't jump on family members, and when company is unexpected I'm not always outside with her.  But, overall I think it was money well spend.  The UPS driver has learned to honk, and I meet him at the truck.  Poor guy ;)

[Brandi]

I have the Invisible fence brand and LOVE IT!!  If anything goes wrong they will come out and fix it.  Lifetime warranty on the box too.  There are some dogs that don't do so well with this type of fence and others do great.  I have a 3 dogs, 2 doodles and 1 9yr old lab mix.  My doodles being puppies I was a little worried, but they took to it VERY well.  They have never left the yard and have respected the fence from day 1.  The training part is very important.  Make sure you read your training manual and follow it.  Before you know it, your dog will catch on.  My sister has Invisible fence too, I take my dogs to her house and I flagged her property the first few times, and they knew what the flags meant.  We go to her house all the time now, they remember.  Doodles are extremely smart, you'll do fine with one.  

Good Luck

[F, Calla & Luca]

No advice here but congratulations.

[BG and Gavin]

We have the Pet Safe wireless version.  You plug the unit into an outlet in your house and it creates a barrier 90 feet in all directions (you are able to make it less) with no wires to bury.  We use it at the cottage and have been very happy.  Just went up this weekend after not being there for 6 months and Gavin remembered his boundaries even without the collar on.  It too beeps a  warning when he is getting close to the boundary and reminds him to back up.  As others have said there is no substitute for consistent and effective training on any of these systems.  You will not have good results if you slack off on that step.  I still do not let Gavin out unsupervised with this system as there are too many animals that can come into the yard and other trouble to get into on the property :)