I’ve been wanting to write an article about “invisible” fences, aka electric fences for some time. I was spurred to action after reading an article by an esteemed colleague, Laurie Luck at Smart Dog University. She got herself and her dogs home safely after one of her neighbor’s dogs broke through the invisible fence but it was a scary experience. I’ve experienced this frightening situation myself with my own dogs and client dogs when out on walks. I wrote an article titled Protecting Your Dog on Walks where I made many suggestions for protecting your dog from people and other dogs that are off leash to help you if you ever find yourself in this situation.
If invisible fences are such a wonderful invention, why are off leash dogs breaking through the border towards those of us walking our dogs on leash? When I ask clients why they’ve installed an invisible fence, the two most popular answers are: the prohibitively high cost of solid fencing and neighborhood covenants that prohibit solid fencing. I thought I’d take this opportunity to go through the justifications I hear from people for using these things and why invisible fences are often not a good idea for dogs or people.
