Some questions about those dog shock collar things

Factual Questions
1

There’s a neighbor’s dog that has that wireless fence thing in the front yard, where the dog can’t go beyond the perimeter without getting shocked, so it stays in the yard. A couple of questions:
[ul]
[li] How painful is the shock?[/li][li] Do veterinarians consider it humane? (Not looking for a debate here, just wondering what the general concensus is among professionals)[/li][li] What happens if the dog charges past it and keeps going - does it get more and more painful? Does it shut off after a certain distance or time outside the fence? Do the dog’s ears explode like the guy from Lost?[/li][li] Does the field being generated have a height limitation? Could he jump over it somehow?[/li][li] I assume the RF signal or whatever is running non-stop - does it interfere with any other signals, like pacemakers or cell phones or radar detectors?[/li][/ul]

Thanks in advance

2
  1. The shock is painful enough to be startling, but not to the “Your agonizer, please” level.
  2. Don’t know
  3. This is a big problem. Since there is no physical barrier, a dog can run through the “fence” and then get trapped outside (it will start getting shocked as it approaches the fence from the wrong side.)
  4. Yes, but it’s a cylindrical barrier, so the dog would have to be quite the jumper.
  5. I doubt it - it’s a pretty low-level signal.
3

As far as the height limitations, this can be a factor if you live in an area with a lot of snow. The snow is roughly 5 feet deep in my front yard right now and my dogs collars don’t beep if they approach the limit there, they do beep if they approach the limit in the driveway where the snow is cleared.

4

My neighbor’s puppy has the problem from point 3. It gets excited, charges past the wire, and then is afraid to cross the line back into his yard! Of course these non-visible fence items aren’t magic by themselves; they involve training your dog to recognize the boundaries so that their own instinct overrides their excitement. In the end, it’s just a training aid. In fact, I’ve had one of these systems for years, but haven’t installed it. My dog seems to have discovered the limits of the yard shortly after moving in. Well, the new neighbor puppy tends to make her forget, though. What’s strange is that she willingly respects the boundaries (the puppy aside), whereas in our previous house, her sole objective was to escape the fenced-in back yard.

5

My uncle is a vet. He recommended a particular brand of electric fence to my parents a few years ago when they lived in a house that couldn’t be fenced. We trained the dog to the fence, but she was stubborn, and would keep crossing the fence, even knowing she would get shocked*. My uncle suggested these extender things that would increase the area where the shock was felt. He warned, however, that the particular dog’s personality probably dictated that the electric fence was doomed in general. He was right.

Re: How painful is the shock -
I was about 10 at the time and played around with the shock collar on my hand quite a bit. It’s a peculiar sensation, really. I wouldn’t call it “pain.” It’s just really uncomfortable. Akin, perhaps, to hitting your funny bone. When it goes off, your first thought isn’t “ouch.” It’s “what the hell was that?” Even if you’re prepared for it.

*It was pretty sad, actually. She would walk to the end of the driveway and pace back and forth right at the edge of the “barrier.” She would gather up her courage for half an hour or so, then she’d back up about 50 feet, and then run at the barrier at a full sprint and LEAP across the threshold. Then she’d play around in the neighborhood until one of us caught her. We ended up having to give her away.

6

There are a bunch of videos on Youtube of people shocking themselves with those collars.

7

How painful is the shock? Enough to get the dog’s attention, definitely.
Do veterinarians consider it humane? (Not looking for a debate here, just wondering what the general concensus is among professionals) Don’t know, other than I’ve never seen any complaints about it. If vets hated them, you’d think the public would know it by now. …but then, if that were true we’d never have needed the Straight Dope…
What happens if the dog charges past it and keeps going - does it get more and more painful? Does it shut off after a certain distance or time outside the fence? Do the dog’s ears explode like the guy from Lost? It’s essentially a wire that transmits on a radio frequency.
Does the field being generated have a height limitation? Could he jump over it somehow? “yes” and “unlikely” - being a weak radio signal, it transmits in three dimensions. If a dog can approach to within two or three feet without incident, in theory they could jump three feet over it. But I don’t think they’re capable of deducing that. :slight_smile:
I assume the RF signal or whatever is running non-stop - does it interfere with any other signals, like pacemakers or cell phones or radar detectors? Not in my experience.

Balthisar makes an excellent point. How this works, typically, is that you place little white flags along the wire/fence, then train the dog (there are training tips available), then eventually get rid of the white flags.

I don’t think they’re cruel - our dog never gets near enough to it to get shocked. It works great for us.

Remember, though, that it won’t keep other dogs OUT. If dogs roam the neighborhood, keep that in mind. We did have that happen twice, and our dog’s desire to run with the pack waltzed her right out the gate, shock and all.

8

I’m not even sure it’s a radio signal on the wire. Remember that an antenna (the wire) has to be sized to a harmonic of the broadcast frequency (the wavelength, rather). However any current flowing through a wire generates an RF field. But that falls off rapidly per the inverse square rule, which would mean the collar would have to be super, super sensitive unless there were massive amounts of current flowing through the thing. Or not. I’ve had too many beers to want to do the calculation right now, so maybe someone will come along and tell us how these things work on the technical level. My hunch, though, is that it’s not radio.

9

My friends used to have one of those systems for their dogs - I tested the shock on myself and it pretty much feels like it does when you put a 9 volt battery on your tongue.

10

Also, the collar emits a sound before the shock happens, so the dog gets pavloved* to the fact that the noise means the shock is coming. And that if they don’t hear the noise (dead battery) they can head down the road to visit friends.

  • Yup, I just made that up. I’m probably not the first one.
11

Testing on yourself doesn’t mean much. Many things that would hurt a human wouldn’t hurt a dog. Using a choke collar on a human hurts a lot, not so much for a dog. Probably vice-versa I suppose.

12

So, there’s nothing to stop the dog from tunneling under it? Great, just great, now I have to have Schultz check all the floorboards.

13

We have one of these, attached to a physical fence. We did it to stop a determined digger; now she doesn’t go near the fence and so doesn’t get out.

I tested it on myself and it is definitely unpleasant but not exactly what I would call painful. It’s about like a really strong version of what you feel if you shuffle your feet over a carpet and touch a doorknob.

There is a cutout circuit in the collar too. If the shock continues for more than 15 or 20 seconds then it assumes that the dog is trapped near the wire somehow and cuts off to prevent hurting it.

The collar does emit a warning signal if it gets too close to the wire and only goes into shock mode if the dog continues to approach the wire. Ours has learned what the distance is and doesn’t go near the fence anymore (even if we turn the transmitter off).

Yes, if the dog does get out of the area the same system now prevents it from coming back. There is another system that uses a central transmitter instead of a wire and the collar will warn then shock if the dog gets too far away from it. This doesn’t prevent the dog from returning (though I presume that it also cuts off after running for a fixed period of time to prevent injuring the dog if it is somehow removed from the area and prevented from returning.

14

I installed one of these several years ago for my two rambunctious Boston terriers. I had a split rail fence surrounding the yard by they thought nothing of just walking under it and roaming away from home.
The install was easy. I rented a gas powered trench digger from Home Depot and cut a 3" deep crevase right next to the inside of the split rail fence.
Dropped the wire in and completed a loop by attaching both ends to a control box and plugging it into an outlet. The control box has a light on it to let you know it’s getting power and the loop is not broken. Buried the wire.
The control box also has a dial control on it to adjust the sensitivity. You can set the field to only a few feet radius around the wire or about a 6-7 foot radius.
You can then test it by carrying the collar a few feet off the ground and approaching the line. It will set off an audible chirp to tell you to back-off. If you stand your ground or continue forward it will give a shock. The shock intensity will increase the closer you get to the line.
To train the dog you put the collar on with rubber (training) prongs, get a leash and walk around the yard with him. Let them wander by themselves with some slack in the leash. If they get close to the line and they hear the audible chirp you shout “BACK” or “NO” and pull them away from the line and then praise them.
I did this with each of them for about 20 minutes a day for 3 days.
That was it.
Put the real collars on them and let them go. Didn’t take long before each of them got buzzed (yelp! yelp! yelp!) but they knew where to retreat to when it happened. I was amazed at how fast they learned on their own and became aware of their limitations. I’d let the little speedy one out and she’d zip out the door at top speed and I’m thinking “She’s gonna go right through and zap herself good” only to see her hit the brakes at the last moment.
They are so aware of it now that even if there are rabbits in the yard and they are going nuts to be let out to chase them they will literally chase them out of the yard but not go after them.
Cost of kit with one collar $100, additional collar $40, trench digger rental $40 = $180.
It was either that or install a chain link fence (contractor estimate $4000).

15

We have one of these systems. My dogs were determined escape artists, and I bought this as a last resort. We have a physical fence as well as the invisible fence.

How painful is the shock?

We have large dogs (100+ lbs), so I had to get the larger, more powerful collars. I held one in my hand and walked towards the fence. It definitely got my attention.

Keep in mind, though, that the dogs only get shocked a few times. Even my stupid mutts learned to avoid getting shocked very quickly. The collars warn before they shock.

Do veterinarians consider it humane?

I’m not a vet, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t. The dog gets a few painful shocks while they are figuring the system out, after that, all it generally takes is a warning tone for the dogs to stay away from the fence. It’s not like the dogs are constantly getting shocked. And a few quick shocks while learning is definitely a lot more humane than getting squished by a car.

What happens if the dog charges past it and keeps going - does it get more and more painful? Does it shut off after a certain distance or time outside the fence? Do the dog’s ears explode like the guy from Lost?

When the dogs get close to the wire, the collar starts chirping warning tones. If the dog doesn’t back away, then the collar shocks the dog, and continues to shock the dog in periodic pulses until they get away from the wire. Once they get outside of the fence and away from the wire, they won’t get shocked any more.

Does the field being generated have a height limitation? Could he jump over it somehow?

The collars work on a distance away from the wire, and this distance is configurable. It works at about the same distance horizontally as vertically, so if you set it to trigger about eight feet away, the dog would have to leap eight feet up and sixteen feet in length to avoid it. That’s beyond the abilities of most dogs.

A really determined dog could run straight through the fence, though.

I assume the RF signal or whatever is running non-stop - does it interfere with any other signals, like pacemakers or cell phones or radar detectors?

My system hasn’t interfered with anything around my house. I don’t have a pacemaker. The fence is pretty low power. I can’t imagine that it would interfere with much.

One thing to keep in mind. Leave yourself a way in and way out. Once the dog gets trained on where the shock areas are, they won’t cross them, even if the fence is turned off and you are trying to get the dog back into the yard. Make sure your dog knows there is a way back in (through the front door of the house, or whatever) so that you can get them back on your property if they have somehow escaped.

16

My BIL put one along his fence to discourage a jumper. When they installed it, they marked it with a series of little flags. After the dog got used to it, they took down the flags, but kept them in case they ever needed them again.

Some time later he reseeded a patch of his lawn. He put the flags up to let his kids know to avoid that area. What he didn’t anticipate was that the dog suddently began avoiding that area as well! “Oh no - it’s those shocking flags again!” :wink:

17

The answers vary a bit from brand to brand. The one I had (Home Free by Innotek) could be adjusted for signal strength (which determined how wide the buzz zone is,) and shock strength. There are three sizes of electrodes for depths of coat.

It’s not something the dog inherently understands. You have to train her with the flags and leash commands for a while to imprint the message of “go here, and this happens.” If you skip this step, the dog may resist going outside at all. Also, this part may seem obvious, but you have to take off the collar to take the dog for a walk or ride outside the zone. :smack:

If you have greyhounds, forget it. They’ll cross the wire at full speed, and the shock won’t even happen til the dog is outside the wire.

Don’t worry about a dog digging under it. The dog won’t think to go deep enough to evade the signal.

We installed my wire with an electric edger, set to 1½ inches deep. If I had to do it again, I’d use heavier wire, with bright yellow insulation. When you’re patching breaks, it’s hard to spot tiny black wire in the soil.