Some of the longer term members of this forum will remember how fond Barney was escaping by swimming to freedom across the river at the bottom of the garden. When we moved 6 months ago to a smaller house but much bigger plot of land the challenges were slightly different. We wanted open views but we also needed to contain Barney (renamed McQueen by my partner Ian) as soon as we moved in I was on the phone to fencing contractors but couldn't find anyone willing to do chain link fence, plus the cost was going to be eye-watering. It was while hunting around for alternatives that I stumbled on dogfence. I'd looked at "invisible fence" some years ago but discounted it because it had a lot of drawbacks. This company though seemed to have solved pretty much all of them so I talked to them and after careful consideration had it installed. It is very effective, when the farmer moved sheep into the field next door, Barney barked a bit but didn't even try to get out to worry them and this week I've had builders in and they keep leaving the gate open on to the road (it's out of sight of the house so I can't tell when they do this) but the dogs don't go near that corner. I can't tell you how much less stressful my life is not having to check where Barney is all the time - it's great.
Re: thank heavens for the dog fence That must be a big relief...I did have a smile picturing the escape artist swimming determinedly across the river to freedom ;D When we got new neighbours ,they brought cats and used to saunter past the end off our garden which is part of the gold course.....Dexter was right over so we had to put up a railing that he's never tried to negotiate :
Re: thank heavens for the dog fence Karen - its from "dogfence.co.uk" it is a loop of cable around the property that gives off an fm signal. The dogs have collars that beep if they go near or give them a TINY static shock if they cross it. We enclosed an acre including installation and training for just £1200. It took just a couple of hours to train us and the 3 dogs. I know many people would shriek at the idea of any aversive training but it took the clever labs just two breaches during training to work it out. They've learned so well we don't even need the collars on anymore they simply don't go near the boundary! We had the ulitmate test yesterday - a cat ran past the open gate and Barney ran up to the edge of the "safe" zone and stopped - a 5 foot fence before he would have scaled and been on the road....
