What's new
Mastiff Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Welcome back!

    We decided to spruce things up and fix some things under the hood. If you notice any issues, feel free to contact us as we're sure there are a few things here or there that we might have missed in our upgrade.

Electric fences

BAMCB

Well-Known Member
We have an electric fence which works great for Sonny but I've not wanted to use it for Chica or Ava because they listen well and we figured we were moving soon so just stayed out with them mostly. But plans have changed and we will be here for awhile longer. We rent so a substantial physical fence is not an option. I hate keeping the girls in when they would like to be out because I cannot sit with them. Does anyone have experience training an adult dog who has been abused in the past with an electric fence? Is it a train wreck waiting to happen? Are there good ways of doing this or just avoid at all costs? I know my neighbors hate it(home owners association) but I do leave a few flags up because I'm not comfortable with no physical reminder of the boundary for Sonny. Any advice appreciated. Also, if someone has ever made a physical boundary that is minimal, easily removable with little to no damage and looks appealing I'm sure we could do this. Just need ideas as I'm not creative or good with that stuff. Lol thanks!
 

season

Well-Known Member
My advice and opinion is if you can't be outside with them then they should be inside with you. When Solo is outside he's either on a walk with me or on a 30 ft tie out. I have a fence but he can easily jump it if u wants to. I err on the side of caution. Also, don't worry about your dog's past. They don't think like us.


Carpe Diem
 

Boxergirl

Well-Known Member
I'm also of the opinion that if I can't be outside with them, or at least at a window, they stay in. I wouldn't be comfortable with just an electric fence if I were in the house. As for not worrying about their past, I do agree that dogs don't think like we do. They do, however, carry baggage from things that have happened in the past. I've worked to rehab too many dogs to think otherwise. It doesn't mean that you baby them, but it does mean that you must be aware that sometimes you have to handle things differently.
 

tlov

Well-Known Member
We have an electric fence. Both the mastiffs were trained as puppies, but one of the basset hounds was trained as an adult. We got him as a puppy though so not the same situation as chica. We trained them with flags and when we started training them we had the collar set very low and slowly increased the setting of the collar over a couple weeks. I left the flags in for a long time to make sure they know the boundaries and slowly removed them. We've never had any problems with our dogs and the fence. We don't leave them out without keeping an eye on them though because we have had people walk by before with their dogs on long retractable leashes who aren't paying attention and let them come up into our yard with our dogs out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

BAMCB

Well-Known Member
I like to leave the sliding door open so they can go in and out. And they all love to lounge on the patio in back or Chica's favorite place is at the front door. I think I'd like her trained with the electric fence as an added security, not a babysitter.

Tlov- when you put the flags up did you do any leash training or did he just sort of figure it out?
Sonny had to learn on his own because the steps they gave us did not work well for him. I would like to avoid this happening again.

Season and boxergirl- It is reassuring to hear they don't look at it the past the same as us but I can definitely see how it has affected her negatively. I am learning to not baby her. When we had no diagnosis I justified spoiling her some but now that she will be around for a long time I've really had to change that. Much to her dismay of course;) lol
 

tlov

Well-Known Member
BAMCB we did leash training at first. When we originally got the fence invisible fence sent trainers out for several sessions. They had us start with the collar on a very low setting and have the dog on a leash. Basically just tell them back and pull them back when they try to cross the flags. Then slowly we adjusted the collar to higher settings and for awhile we had 2 leashes hooked together so we could pull them back if they got in it. All the dogs picked it up pretty quickly. I did leave the flags in for longer than they suggested so they would still have the visual reminder. The collar does beep at them when they are getting close as a warning. The bassets would push their limits and go to the beep a lot. The mastiffs never do. They know the boundaries and really don't have any desire to leave.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

season

Well-Known Member
Yep. Too many rescue owners live in the dogs past thinking they do too. Dogs don't. Humans do. Agree, don't baby/coddle them because of something that happened in their past.


Carpe Diem
 

marke

Well-Known Member
my opinion is not all dogs , or people , can be treated the same and expected to thrive equally .......... how the same experiences are perceived from individual to individual are not always the same...... and how experiences are perceived do hardwire their brains ........ i remember reading how experiences and perception alter genetics by turning on and off dna ....
 

DennasMom

Well-Known Member
Denna won't step through or over those silly 2ft tall garden fences... not sure where she got that, but she won't even barrel through them to fence-fight with the neighbor's TM (and fence-fighting is one of her favorite past times... she gets the biggest smile on her face when egging on the neighbor's poor pup).
Like this stuff: Shop Garden Treasures White Steel Garden Fencing (Actual: 32-in) at Lowes.com

Even if you're out there with them, it would be an extra visible line not to cross.
And... if that was all that was between Denna and the big-wide-world... I don't think I'd leave her out there unsupervised, even knowing she's 99% not going to cross it... there's still that unknown item that would entice her across the other 1%.

Same for me with invisible fencing... I'd be willing to bet a mastiff would power through an inconvenient zap if the target is justified. My old boss had a Maltese that crossed her fence to go after a varmint (or it could have been a coyote)... and then got stuck outside, looking in.
 

Ronbow

Member
Depends A LOT on the dog and the property you are trying to control. We had an electric fence for a dog with high protection and high prey drives. He ran through the fence chasing a squirrel and the high level shocks didn't slow him down a bit. They absolutely did prevent him from coming back into the yard once the squirrel chase was over. That was unexpected for all of us. Dog became so confused that I had a terrible time convincing him it was safe to go back into the backyard at all.

We may have had better results if we had spent more time (like a lot more) familiarizing the dog with the electric fence. That particular dog was an extreme personality and is was hard to give him a message subtly without him taking it to the extreme.

The electric fence around our front window did do an excellent job keeping him off the couch by that window, even when that tasty mailman walked by. And it did not scare him out of the living room all together.

Unlike the window example, where the price of failure was dog on the couch, the price of failure for the yard fence could have been a bit mailman or a run-over dog. I was quickly discouraged from investing the time to try to make it work because I lived with the nightmare visions of failure. For Labradors they're probably great.