Pet Containment Systems

They do work but it has been my experience with these containment systems, if you do not have a boundry behind it, the dog will buck up and bolt thru and not want to come back again for fear of the jolt they receive on the way in. The under ground wires do break at times, the batteries go dead without warning. There is really a better way to train your dogs to stay in their own yard than these systems.
", but they also get punished on the way back in. " If I were punished for bolting out and then coming back in on your command, I would also not respond to your "come" make sense? If you were constantly being punished for something that comes natural to you, or being yelled at all the time, you soon will not want to be around that person any more and stop responding to their voice commands.
 
A strong recall is much more effective than this containment system. Positive reinforcement is also much better way to train them. I would recommend clicker training with your dogs, which makes it fun for them as well as you. Punishing your dog for bolting out of the yard and then punishing them when they do respond to your command of come, is negative inforcement and as one of our forum members says, negative reinforcement only produces resistants.
 
You have got to make yourself and your yard THE MOST interesting thing around. The reason's dogs stray out of the yard is A-They are bored B- Other interesting smells and sights to stimulate them mentally (It is their newspaper if you will) and C- Once you call them back into their own yard, to them the "FUN" is gone or ended.
 [linkhttp://www.clickersolutions.com]http://www.clickersolutions.com[/link] Has wonderful ideas on training your family members. Which work wonders.
 
Training with positive reinforcement is much more effective than negative reinforcement. A sharp "Eh eh" is a better form of punishment than hitting or loosing your cool with your dogs. When they do come back to you, tell them what good dogs they are and give them treats. You can also start a strong recall by going out with them and calling them to you by name, when they come to you, click, praise, treat... then let them go on about their way. You can even do this in the house too.
What you want to do is not set them up for failure but success and if that means you have to  re think something in which you are trying to teach them as an example, walking on a leash on your left side, if they cross over to the right side of your body, YOU just walk behind them so they are on your left side of your body again, click, praise and treat... good job..
 
If you search the archives, there is a whole lot of training information on not just clicker training but books to read on how to..
 
Welcome to the forum and I do hope you stick around with us. And last, the price to pay here is a picture of your fur kids...
 
Angel

we have one of the "wired" pet containment systems and find it works really well- if you use it properly. It's a training aid, not a fence. Basically you use +R to teach the dog to stay in the yard and the system just helps you. Most systems come with detailed training instructions. Most failures of these systems are caused by the owners not following the training instructions.

I did see this same question posted by the OP in another forum. But, no spam attached so...

Let me get this straight. Dog is left inside containment system. If he gets close to the marker line, he hears the word "come". If he continues towards the invisible line he gets a shock. So "come" might end up meaning the same as the warning tone in most of the other systems. "Come" should be replaced with "halt", at this point.

If the dog is trained prior to using the fence to go to the treat dispenser when they hear the word "come", first - the dog learns to go to the fence, hear the word come, and then go to the dispenser for a treat instead of crossing the line. If they do cross the line and they do recieve a shock (as punishment), does the collar then emit another "come" command once they have transgressed the boundary? There will not be another shock from this point on until the dog returns to the confined area, and moves to cross the boundary again from the inside. The dog must then decide if it would rather stay outside or come back and get a cookie. The cookie must be more rewarding than whatever is outside of the boundary...say, squirrels which are fun to chase.

If the dog learns to stay inside for the reward of the cookie, what is to keep him from simply running to the boundary, hearing the "come", going to the treat dispenser, and back again over and over to self reward and eleviate boredom.

Won't the word "come" start to mean "go to the treat dispenser"? Okay, I'll behave at this point...(wink-wink-nudge-nudge). []

I guess it would be interesting to see it in action. I can see a lot of problems with leaving a bored, underexercised dog alone all day with a system like this. It still does not keep other animals out. There are some dogs who's temperment wouldn't do well with any of these e-fence systems, and some dogs who will gladly bypass a cookie or a shock in favor of chasing a squirrel.

Myself, I'll just stick with a nice solid board fence anyday, and keep away from automated reward systems in favor of hands-on teaching, training, and communicating. 

I really need to chime in here....I have one other thing for you to think about.  But first let me say that my grandmother installed one of those systems and the dog just learned to run through the shock because then it was over fast.  That dog got hit and killed by a semi truck by the way, after running through the "fence".  Anyway, the thing I want you to think about is this....That fence may keep your dog in, but it won't keep other dogs out.  We had a case at the vet clinic I worked at where a small dog was mauled to death by a larger dog.  The small dog was sitting nicely in his yard, within the boundaries of the electric fence, and this dog ran up to it and just ripped it apart.  The poor little dog didn't run away because he didn't want to get shocked by the collar!!  Can you imagine?!  Just another point to consider. 

It won't keep thieves or coyotes out either.  People I know who use them are there to supervise the dog, too.  I would never leave any of my dogs alone outdoors in one of those.  Too many times, I have had to call my neighbor (around the block and on the other side of the state highway [sm=uhoh.gif]) to come get his Lab, who, no matter how tight they do up the e-collar, seems to slip it and go for a hike.

My SO's family has one for their boxer and it's worked quite well for them. They have a large property, so there's at least one acre enclosed by the electric fence. Someone is always there to supervise (as spiritdogs noted, electric fences won't keep out hungry wild animals!), and the dog learned the boundaries of the fence very well. Its primary use is to let the dog wander around while my SO's mother is working in the garden so the dog doesn't have to be leashed and the mother doesn't have to worry.

Thank you for your comments.  Over the last week my trainer has been testing this new reward containment system.  It was amazing!

It is more like a recall system than a containment system. It consists of a treat feeder located in a central area and a voice collar mounted on the dog. It is mostly reward training but has an optional static discomfort for users that use discomfort training.   The dog is condition to the word “come” from the voice collar. The dog learns to return to the feeder on command “come” and is reinforced with a treat. The training starts by first training the dog to do simple commands like sit and lay down and come.  Each time the dog performs these behaviours correctly, you push a button and the collar calls the dog to the feeder with the word "come" and the feeder gives the dog a treat. Over time the dog is conditioned and the behavior becomes habit. 
  The feeder can be used inside or outside and can be used in wireless mode or wired mode.  So it's portable and you can take it camping or to a friends house.
  I was very skeptical.  But then I saw my 12 week old pointer puppy and his 10 year old lab being trained on it.
 
It was impressive. Both dogs totally understood the commands.  The trainer had the following feedback.   The learning of the recall command both on the older dog and puppy took three 10-minute sessions. It then took him another 10 times with the lab to train him on distractions like humans or dogs. He did use a leash to help reinforce the behavior with the lab on distractions. The trainer was confident that the system could be as effectively as a well-trained dog on the command come. Well-trained dogs take time to turn commands into habits.He has experience with the optional stimulation mode. Basically an adjustable static e-collar. The dog learns to avoid the discomfort by recalling faster. The dog is always reinforced with a treat on completion of the recall. The trainer said this was very effective because the dog first understood what the command was, and both reward and discomfort enforcement was used. However, he felt that discomfort really was not needed if the training continued with more repetitions of reward training only. He said it is really no different than any other type of non-punishment training.He agreed with the manufactures advantages over conventional punishment only systems.Dogs loved the system and got very excited when it came time to train them.  It was like a game.
Fast to train90% of training can be done in the houseTotally portable, no retraining for different locations inside or outside because the dog is responding to a command not learning a physical boundary.There are no side effects like you get in conventional systems (such as aggression and nervousness) because it does not use continued discomfort to teach an alternate behavior.Will not shock your dog if it comes back the yard.Will try three times to recall the dog if he goes out of the boundary.The dog will not get shocked if he stays in the middle of the boundary zone.If used in reward/discomfort mode it is much more effective than conventional containment systems.Can be used to reward train lots of other behaviors like sit, heel, come, down, etc.   The trainer had some concerns like dogs would learn to activate the system to get a treat. This was overcome by a control that did not feed the dog every time. The trainer felt the best way to use the system was to feed your dog his meals from the system. Needless to say I'm excited to see how my dog progresses with this system, but so far so great!  My puppy is only 12 weeks old and he comes, sits, lays down, and goes to his bed.  All without any punishment.

Question - is this system designed to work like a wireless fence? If so, how does it keep the dog within the boundaries you set? By activating the "come" command when the dog gets close?