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We Stopped Dog Digging With An Invisible Fence System
You'd think a tall, wooden fence was enough to keep our golden retriever in our backyard, but it wasn't. She just dug her way out! So we decided to install an electronic pet containment system to keep her safe in addition to our wooden fence. It seems weird -- most dog owners install wireless fencing as an alternative to visible fencing -- but the two systems work well together to secure our backyard.
You’d think a tall, wooden fence was enough to keep our golden retriever in our backyard, but it wasn’t. She just dug her way out! So we decided to install an electronic pet containment system to keep her safe in addition to our wooden fence. It seems weird—most dog owners install wireless fencing as an alternative to visible fencing—but the two systems work well together to secure our backyard.
Wireless pet fence systems like Invisible Fence (the brand we chose) all work in a similar manner. A wire is strung along the perimeter of the containment area, often the property line. The dog (or dogs—the same system can be used with multiple pets) are fitted with a special electronic collar. When the dog approaches the wire, a warning beep or buzz occurs. If the dog ignores the warning and doesn’t back away, a small electric shock encourages the dog to move away from the perimeter.
Electronic pet fences are very effective, but they’re not completely safe. Dogs only receive a small shock, and a dog that is determined to cross the line can still do so. That’s why proper training and conditioning is essential, something that many wireless fence owners don’t do.
You can get better results by using a pet fence together with a real fence. That’s what we did by installing an Invisible Fence system in parallel with our existing wooden fence. The electronic fence was easy to install in this scenario, because in most places we could simply attach it to the back of our wooden fence to save us a lot of digging.
The advantage of this system is that the physical fence keeps the dog from jumping off the property while the wireless fence keeps the dog from digging its way under the other fence. You can also adjust the pet fence’s electronic field to be fairly narrow, which means the dog can still approach the physical fence quite closely before being warned away.
So if you’re having trouble keeping your dog contained, consider combining a regular fence with a wireless electronic pet fence. It’s the best of both worlds!