Casey:
Hello, it’s Casey Conrad with Contain My Dog and today I want to talk to you about an issue that dog lovers like myself who are considering an electronic dog fence wonder, and that is: Will the fence constantly shock my dog? I got to tell you, I can totally relate to this question, because I felt the exact same way and had the same question when I was installing an electric dog fence at my house when my mom moved in with her dog.
Here’s what I found out. No your dog won’t keep getting shocked so long as it has had proper and complete training. Yes, the dog will get corrected one or more times during the initial training phase when done correctly, and yes, the correction is going to startle a dog but it’s not going to hurt him.
Here’s what else that I didn’t know about the electronic dog fence. The training process gives the dog fair warnings. This includes both visual warnings, that’s the flags that go around the entire perimeter, as well as auditory signals a “beep, beep, beep” from the collar that the dog is going to hear.
Between the flags being seen and the beeping being heard, they create an association with the dog that says “Oh, oh I’m getting too close to the place that I didn’t like”. The result is that the dog learns to stop at the boundary line which comes before the correction. What this multiply sensory training does is it gets the dog to clearly establish where it can and cannot go in the yard.
If the correction isn’t strong enough to get the dog to associate “Hey, I don’t want to do that”, you’re going to ultimately have a dog that may be tempted to jump the line, and certainly you don’t want that. As challenging as it is to be an owner to watch your dog have a correction, it’s kind a like watching your kid touch the stove. In the long run you teach them not to touch something hot because you want them to be safe. The same holds true with your dog.
This is why I decided to not do the training myself with the dog, because it was a personal decision and you can watch our other videos about that, that’ll help you through that decision as well. The bottom line is this, when trained properly and completely your dog does not keep getting corrections. The short term training phase exists to create the long term benefit and peace of mind knowing that you can open up the door, let your dog out, and know that he or she will be safely contained.
It took a couple of weeks to get through the challenging part, but it was worth the minor inconveniences. For more helpful information and answers to other questions you may have please check out our video library and learning center. Until next time, this is Casey Conrad with Contain My Dog.