My fiance and I recently went through the same dilemma as you. We spent about a month debating on whether to put in an invisible fence. We eventually decided to go with an invisible fence instead of a traditional above ground. We have a small yard, our dogs are NEVER unattended outside, they tangle me with their leashes multiple times a day, and I wanted them to enjoy their yard as much as possible. We had the fence installed approximately three weeks ago and I'm glad we did. Both of our dogs are pure bred yorkies, one is 5lbs and the other is 8lbs. I was sooooo worried about putting the collar on my smaller yorkie especially. However, I was pleasantly surprised once we began training her to use the fence properly. My biggest complaint with the fence is that it will shock them when they try to run back. Thus far, we have not had any major issues, my younger pup has taken to the fence quite well and knows her boundaries. At first, whenever she would hear the chirping from her collar as a warning she would look for bugs. Now she just hops back into the "safe" part of the yard. My other dog is less than thrilled with the fence but that's because she thinks she is the boss. She acts the same with her no bark citronella collar, she acts as if both collars break her spirit. She has a great deal of attitude and I believe her issue is ego related only. At first she did not want to be in the yard but now they roam around relatively freely, with my supervision of course. We have even gotten to the point where they can roam around the garage and on the driveway and when I tell them to stay close they stay within seeing distance. Although the training manual tells you to not say anything when they get close to the line, I tell both mine "be careful". They seem to understand the command and back up immediately. We are still supervising my older pup with breaking her boundaries. The first day we allowed her off leash for supervision she ran through the fence and didn't get shocked. We soon discovered the boundary setting was too low, we adjusted the setting forgetting that it would make the collar less effective. Since we readjusted the boundary control we have had no problems. Overall I would highly recommend the fence. Also, if you are concerned with the level of shock they get, its only a static shock. I would never do anything to hurt my babies they are much too important to me. I have no children (yet) so they are more or less my kids. My youngest pup is my baby, she will scream bloody murder even if you come up behind and scare her and even she didn't yipe. I would definitely do plenty of research, as we did, and make the decision that's right for you. Good luck!
__________________  Roxy's Mommy |