Advice on E-Fence for dog with high prey instinct?

[Diana Erhart]

We moved back in February and are still without fencing in our yard due to various things that have happened.  But, the reason for this post is that I have always been against an electronic fence.  Not that I feel there is anything wrong with them, but because my Charlie has a very high prey instinct.  He chases everything and anything.  Our back yard faces an undeveloped area with tall weeds and many bunnies, groundhogs, moles, deer and who knows what else.  As soon as I get Charlie outside on his leash he wants to go to the back yard and chase the bunnies.  My husband wants to consider an electronic fence because we are on a corner lot and the rules will not allow us to totally fence the back yard as they consider the side of our house to also be a "front" yard.  I am very nervous about the electronic fence and am afraid Charlie will bolt right through it to chase the wildlife and take the hit from it.  Does anyone else out there have a dog with a high prey instinct and have tried an electronic fence? Also, are they very expensive?  I know to put up a regular fence is going to cost us quite a bit, but I want my boy to be safe.  Charlie is 6 years old.  Can a dog this age be trained to use one?

Thanks for any advice you can give on this!

[Heather & Brinkley]

I'll be interested to hear the answers because Brinkley also has a very high prey instinct as well.  Anything small and furry is a target. 

[Angie, Hudson and Lily]

I know many people are against them and have good reasons, but we have one and it has worked for us. We live in the country on 4 acres and have about an acre or so with Invisible Fencing. Hudson has a very high prey drive. His mission in life is to clear his yard of birds, squirrels, and rabbits. He gets most excited about the squirrels and he even plays this game with us where he comes up to us and stares at our face looking for directions (really...). We can say "They went that way:"  and point to the left or right or say up in the tree, and off he runs to that exact direction. After checking he will come back and look at us for another direction. It is quite funny to see. Hudson only went through the fence once about 4 months after completing training. He hasn't ever gone through it again and we have had it about 3 1/2 yrs. Lily has done well with it too. Her prey drive isn't as high as Hudson's, but she does like to chase animals. I think one thing that helps them to be successful with it is that despite their prey drive, they are both sensitive to correction, so they learned quickly that they didn't want to go over the boundry.  They both know all of the boundry lines and we can throw balls or toys and they know exactly where to stop. We chose the Invisible Fence Brand of fencing. Their customer service was great. Our package included three times with a trainer who came out to the house to work with us and the dogs. Training is the key. Too many people don't spend the time on that and just let them go. I know it isn't the solution for all dogs, and it does have drawbacks, but it works well for us. 

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I agree - training is the KEY.  It is hard work - a few weeks to a month of rigorous training. But it pays off.

[Katie and Sophie]

I don't have an E-fence myself, so I'm not going to be able to answer all of your questions, but my parents have one so I can tell you about their experience! I know when they were looking into it it would have been pretty pricey (like a couple thousand pricy- this was a few years ago, so I dont know if it has changed much) to have a company come out and install one but it was only a few hundred dollars to buy the wiring and install it yourself.  It was very easy to install and was definitely worth it to do it that way.  One of their dogs was a little older when they installed the E-fence and she has done just fine with it.  Their dogs have a moderate prey drive and do have a tendency to wander, but have never had an issue with the fence. 

[Jennifer and "Cooper"]

Just my opinions: You know your dog better than anyone. If you fear he will "bolt right through it to chase the wildlife..." then you are probably right which could result in a Charlie running loose and getting lost or injured. Also, I am not a fan of e-fences simply because even if it keeps Charlie in the yard, it won't keep other stray or off-leash dogs out of the yard when Charlie is out.

[Ginny Nightingale]

I have three dogs that are prey-driven with one that is especially so--they have an e-fence from Invisible fence and are totally reliable on it--we have three cats that stroll around just over the fence line in complete safety!! Even the deer know where to go when they meander thru my yard--I agree that you have to be more vigilant than you would with a physical fence to be sure that other dogs do not come in the yard to bother your dogs. That is rarely a problem where I live since we all have e-fences or the dogs are on a leash.The one exception if the goldendoodle next door who is allowed to wander around between their yard and mine, but my dogs LOVE it when she comes to visit and NEVER follow her out of the yard when she goes home.  But I have a breeding female, so I keep a close eye on the yard for stray males when they are out there.

It cost us about $1000 5 years ago to e-fence about an acre of property. The collars are over $200 though and you need to buy batteries from the company--I change the batteries about every 4-5 months and check them to make sure they are still working all the time. My dogs never get zapped because one little beep from the collar backs them right up.

I did have an e-fence that we installed ourselves about 15 years ago that did not work with a terrier I had at the time--I am not sure if it was poor installation or an inferior product, but I did it professionally after that. 

I did have one dog go thru once because she misunderstood my command (they get an "OK" when I take off their collar to go to the car or for a walk so that they know they can go past the fence line). Other than that one incident, I have had no issues. Oh and the age of your dog should not be an issue either!

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

We had Invisible Fence Installed when the girls were puppies (they had to be 4 months before the Company would install).  The training was fairly easy for the dogs.  You MUST replace the batteries regularly and they were not cheap.  The only issue I had was when I tried to stretch the batteries a little longer than I should have.  We have now replaced with a regular fence.  Here were my issues.  I could never relax with the IF.  There was no way to keep other animals and dogs out of our yard.  I never saw any loose dogs in our neighborhood until after I installed.  Also, it was a nuisance for me with the collars.  If I wanted to take them for a walk or in the car (and I take them every where) I had to remember to take the collars off.  I had to teach them that they could cross the line in the drive way if their collar was off only.  So, Prey drive or not, think about the other things associated with the IF as well.  As for the regular fence, one thing I would like to point out is in hindsight I wish we had not fenced the entire back yard.  It gives the girls too much space.  The run too hard and too fast and it is too easy for them to get hurt.

[Anne & Mr. Haley]

We have an e-fence we installed ourselves over three years ago and love it.  Haley's prey instinct goes toward white work trucks with ladders on top.  Not long after Haley was trained to the fence one went by (probably 45-55mph).  Haley went through the fence and in doing so he yelped and jumped straight up while getting the correction.  It wasn't pretty but he has never tested the boundry since.  He will "chase" these trucks but stops before the fence.  Also we can go out to the street and talk to some of his favorite people and he just lies in the yard and waits.  He will not chase his ball through the fence or anything else.  Best $400 to $500 I have ever spent.  The fence encloses approximately 2 of our 3 acres.

[Barbara B., Sasha & Oliver]

I have a e-fence and my Oliver has high prey drive.  My fence cost about $300, I installed it with a friend that is a contractor.  At that time my property was fenced in on three sides but not across the front of my house.  I only had Sasha at the time and she was almost a year old.  The key to making the whole e-fence thing work is TRAINING - I cannot stress that enough, you must follow the instructions.  Sasha did wonderful, my brand of e-fence has a three part warning, first a beep, then a vibrate then the correction.  Of course I put the collar on my arm to see what it felt like and it did not hurt at all.  I did the required 2 or 3 week training.  When I got Oliver I waited until he was about 7 months old before I started training.  At this time my property is completely fenced in with a physical fence but I needed to keep the dogs out of the koi pond and my garden so I stuck with the e-fence.  I did the exact same training with Oliver and he did beautiful, both dogs are totally respectful of the boundry.  My Oliver when chasing squirrls he will chase up to the boundry and then stop, he will sit and watch the squirrls but does not and will not go any further, as I said he has a high prey drive and this has kept him in the boundries.  It has totally worked for my doodles and now I hardly ever even put the collar on them anymore and they still respect the boundries.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I put off getting a fence for over a year because I was so anti-e-fence.  I wanted a real fence, but sadly, we have a 1/2 acre back yard and that would have cost us just way too much.  We had bids that went to $8,000! 

Peri has a very, very high prey instinct.  She will literally pull me down when she is on the leash if she sees a rabbit, bird, etc...if she sees a deer outside she goes absolutely crazy. So I had my doubts.

We finally decided to go with an e-fence after researching heavily.  We had it professionally installed by the Invisible Fence Brand co and paid $1,500 but that included collars for two dogs and the batteries for 2 years I think. 

The training is VERY IMPORTANT.  We spent AT MINIMUM 1.5 hours a day - half at night, half in the morning.  You MUST follow the instructions to a tee if you want it to work (start with beep only, then shock, add distractions, etc...there is a science to it).  If you need more details on that, I can give it to you.  But the bottom line is, my 8 year old chihuahua learned the boundaries...so no dog is "too old" for this. Peri did 100000 times better than Taquito and I think it's because she is just plain smarter than he is. She caught on immediately and would retreat from the boundary before a beep even went off. Honestly, I think she's been shocked one time and we've had the fence 3 months.  The first day we took them off leash to let them get distracted and really test them, deer were up on our ridge. I thought "here we go, she's going to get shocked and run through it".  No way...we had spent 2 weeks training that boundary diligently and she ran up to the edge, barked and turned around. 

Now, as wonderful as our experience has been, I would never neever ever leave them out alone and trust them completely.  I always have my eye on them...and we always go outside with them at night (a lot of thats because Tacky's size and we have coyotes). 

But overall I am very satisfied with the entire system and wish I would have done this when we first moved in the house.