Quoth zxcvbob on Sun, 26 Sep 2004 20:28:19 -0500,

It has been my experience that the dog will walk into the wire one time
(without seeing it) and get zapped, or he will see it, sniff it, and get
zapped on the nose. Eventually, he will go back to see what it was that
bit him, and he'll see the wire. I've never had one that would go over
or under an electric fence after getting zapped once or twice.

Very interesting! I've never used this sort of fence for a dog, though I
used to live in a rural area where single-wire cattle fences were
common. I'll stick with a "real" fence (wire mesh in my case) but I'll
keep that in mind.

I think IF's are cruel because the doog can't see or smell it.

If the fence is used PROPERLY, the dog knows that it is there. I sort of
chuckle every time someone says "you should boundary train the dog
instead of using an IF" because if you follow the instructions and use
common sense, the IF is really just a tool for boundary training.

My advice to the OP is based on the assumption that they have trained
the dog to the IF. If they haven't (some lucky dogs WILL teach
themselves, but I agree it shouldn't happen to a dog) they will need to
drag out the book -- or use a google search on "boundary training" +dog
and some common sense -- to teach the new boundary.

If I were to use the foot-high wire I would also teach it as a boundary
before leaving the dog in a position to investigate it. As you point
out, until the dog is wised up to the fence (in your example by being
"bitten") the dog doesn't see or smell that fence either.


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Only know that there is no spork.