Invisible fences - saw several in the USA, not seen them in UK

[AdventureIsWaiting]

I've been pondering this off and on. We visited some friends in the USA (midwest if it makes a difference) a while ago. They had just bought a puppy, which came with us on a short walk one day. Not knowing the area we walked down a dead end on their estate, and as we turned around to come back saw a wolf the biggest husky I've ever seen, sitting under a tree watching us, completely unfenced in. Friends' puppy was very reactive and aggressive to other dogs, so we got out of there asap without him spotting - and upsetting - the other dog. Apart from our blood pressure, all was fine, but it was the biggest rush of fear I've ever had.

We asked our friends about it and apparently where they live (stereotypical US affluent estate with big front lawns), invisible fences are really common. They pointed several out to us during the rest of our trip and were adamant that the fences work 100% of the time and they are a great idea. Having said that, they are not the best dog owners I've known (I mean this factually, rather than disparagingly - mixed messages, finding biting and aggression funny, only letting the puppy out to toilet on the lawn (sometimes) and not walking him - I ended up Googling a lot about the breed as I felt so sorry for him and he should have been getting 2x short walks a day at that age - hence us taking him for a walk), so I've wondered since if this is true.

I've never seen them in the UK (to my knowledge) and thought knowledgeable posters on here might know why - is it that gardens in the UK tend to be fenced in / smaller, or are invisible fences thought to be cruel (I've seen mixed responses to e.g. training collars, which I think operate similarly)? To be fair I've been in other places in the USA and also not been aware of them, but those places have either been much more rural, or very urban, not suburbia.

Many thanks to anyone who can shed some light.

I once had one for my old dog. Along with a real fence. I tried everything to stop that bloody dog escaping.

@Squarepigeon

How a 75kg woman perceives an electric shock may be very different from how a 5kg cat perceives it.

Exactly this.

You can't know how it feels to your cat because you're not a cat.

I have 5 kids that zip in and out all day long when the weather is nice. Keeping the cat in would have been impossible and cruel. He loves being out. We have acres of garden including big boundary line trees. Cat proofing would have cost a small fortune (we had a quote for 15k!) and looked absolutely horrendous. We lost his sister in the road and I wasn't going to lose him. It really does feel like a shock from running your feet on the carpet. This is by far the best solution we found. I just wish we found it before we lost our other cat.

@sunflowersandbuttercups Then by that logic if we can't know then we can't call it cruel or worse either! You can't have it both ways.

Wow I've spent a lot of time in US with family (with dogs). I've never come across this, it's Essentially an electric fence? My in laws have the open garden to front the dogs don't go out there.

[quote Crescia]@sunflowersandbuttercups Then by that logic if we can't know then we can't call it cruel or worse either! You can't have it both ways. [/quote]
Personally, I would argue that anything that deliberately gives your pet an electric shock is cruel. I'd rather any other solution than deliberately doing something like that to my pets.

You clearly disagree, so there's no point in arguing about it.

Electric fences are routinely used for fencing horses, cattle, sheep etc and i have never heard an insinuation that they are cruel. Keep the animals where they need to be, easy to change location. I have never known an animal to be traumatised by one, and many are very clever in recognising when the charge drops allowing them to cross, supporting the idea of no harm.

@Loshad they are different. These fences are often buried in the ground. No visible barrier at all. And of course an animal may chase something, cross the barrier and be too scared to go home.
I would rather cat proof a part of my property.

@Loshad

Electric fences are routinely used for fencing horses, cattle, sheep etc and i have never heard an insinuation that they are cruel. Keep the animals where they need to be, easy to change location. I have never known an animal to be traumatised by one, and many are very clever in recognising when the charge drops allowing them to cross, supporting the idea of no harm.

It's not comparable.

This is an invisible line that the animal can't physically see to avoid.

Plenty of them where I live. Also plenty of strays picked up wearing the shock collars.

Apart from being horrible, they clearly don't work very well. If your dog sees something to chase the adrenaline rush will get him through the shock, but then he won't want to come home and get shocked again.

How are you seeing several of these fences if they're invisible? Sorry! I couldn't resist it!

A serious answer is that these invisible fences are connected to collars which produce an electric shock to the dog when the boundary is overstepped. They're horribly cruel, often counterproductive, and are banned in many countries. Welsh legislation, for example, made them illegal some time back.

@Squarepigeon

How a 75kg woman perceives an electric shock may be very different from how a 5kg cat perceives it.

Absolutely this.

I have 2 cats. They are allowed out into our small garden which is fenced in. We kept them in until they were 6 months old. They still use a litter tray, dont go out if we’re not in the house and stay in at night completely. They go on the wall / fence but never over it! I dont need to torture them to keep them safe.

@Wolfiefan ok, i can understand the difference now, thanks. I have never heard ( or seen, obviously!) of these buried ones.

@Crescia

People saying it's a massive shock have never actually felt one. I have. It's not massive by any means. It doesn't have to be massively painful to work. It really doesn't. The cat got zapped a total of 3 times before he got the idea. Now he gets to go outside. How would leaving him inside for his entire life have been less cruel?

Exactly this. I used to think they were terrible till I tried one that a friend uses on his 35kg dog. The lower settings are like the buzz of a mobile phone. The setting he uses feel like a stick insect walking on your skin (this was on the thing skin on the inside of my wrist). The highest setting is a strong static buzz, not painful, just surprising. He uses it to distract the dog when she's chasing, and then he can recall her. She feels the prickle of the collar, the red mist lifts a little, he whistles the recall. It keeps her very safe in open country.

The dog is actually thrilled to have the electric collar put on as she knows fun stuff is about to be begin. She is not scared of it at all, quite the opposite: she comes out of the car amped and raring to go.

Electric collars certainly can be abused, and strong shocks are a horrendous idea, but it's like a standard collar and lead: you can abuse a dog with those if you are so inclined, or you can use them calmly and humanely.

Many, many people who use electric collars really object to them being used to terrify the dog, or by people who have no idea what they are doing.

My old dog used to escape any opportunity (Jack Russell). We had a large garden and high fence that she would manage to climb over. We put some trellis on top of the fence to make it even higher so she started tunnelling under. We used one of those lamp shade collars the vets have to try to stop her tunnelling but she would clatter around with it and managed to get it off. Last resort, got an electric shock collar, we were desperate!

I miss that dog, she was 15 when she died and every single day of her life there was an episode of naughtiness.

Any country that permits declawing of cats is unlikely to have an issue with giving domestic pets electric shocks.

Declawing isn't as simple as just removing the claws, which would be bad enough, it's more like a human having the tops of their fingers removed at the first joint and can often result in pain and infection.

There are many other ways of securing your garden that aren't cruel and don't involve an animal having to be punished for being an animal.

Cats hunt, if you're not happy with that don't get a cat and if you can't have a secure fence or wall around your property don't get a dog.

Invisible fences aren't 'invisible' to the animal being shocked.

Invisible fences do usually have a physical boundary some have flags in the area so the dog knows if they go past the flags they will get a shock.

Grumpy I will respectfully totally disagree with everything you have said about electric shock collars. Gundog trainers are still in the dark ages. If the dogs likes the shock it will not work so what the trainers do is ramp up the voltage until it becomes effective at halting the dog.

Dogs learn through association and consequence. Gun dogs have come to me who will not work in a particular area due to having a shock collar on - they have associated that area with the shock and just shut down. They are perfectly happy to work in other fields near by but not in the field that they recieved the shock. Defeats the purpose really.

There are better safer more intelligent ways to train dogs that have minimal negative consequences. I dont like the shock aspect but for me the way dogs are learning through shock collars is poor and there are better ways to teach a behaviour. Yep it may take more time and intelligence but it will be more sustained learning.

I do wish that people would educate themselves before making massive assumptions. What they are ignoring is that, if following the guidance properly, the fence isn't invisible until the pets have learned where it is. That would be incredibly cruel and, I suspect, pointless. You start training with an indoor unit and, when they are first let out, there are flags along the garden perimeter at the "buzz point" so it works just like the electric fencing we use for our horses. The buzz point triggers six inches before the shock point. The dogs and cats could see exactly where the fence was and associated the flags with the buzz and learned within 24 hours to stay within them. Keeps our cats safe from the road without

@Crescia

Plenty of people use them here. They also use shock collars to train gun dogs here. Lots of people here are happy with cats massacring loads of wildlife but find declawing inhumane. We have an invisible fence for our cat. It feels like no more of a shock than the tens unit I used in labor. It means our cat is safe but can still go out. It's a great solution. It would be far crueler to keep him in. He'd be miserable.

Shock collars should be fucking outlawed.

Humans should out then round their neck, give themselves a shock and the. See if they think they're great ...

@00100001 errr we did. You just didn't read the full thread.

To put the collar round your neck? Can't see where you said that.

You put*

DH put it round his neck. I put it on the inside of my wrist because I figured this was actually more sensitive. The only people on this thread who have actually felt one all concur it's not bloody painful. But keep banging the drum about something you haven't experienced.

@JamieFraserskneewarmer

I do wish that people would educate themselves before making massive assumptions. What they are ignoring is that, if following the guidance properly, the fence isn't invisible until the pets have learned where it is. That would be incredibly cruel and, I suspect, pointless. You start training with an indoor unit and, when they are first let out, there are flags along the garden perimeter at the "buzz point" so it works just like the electric fencing we use for our horses. The buzz point triggers six inches before the shock point. The dogs and cats could see exactly where the fence was and associated the flags with the buzz and learned within 24 hours to stay within them. Keeps our cats safe from the road without

Well yes, flags showing the point at which you're going have something nasty happen to you will, of course, will teach you not to go near that particular place. But all the flags in the world wouldn't detract from the fact that it's cruel to cause pain to an animal in order to get it to do what you want.

Would it be okay to hit a dog to 'train' it? No, well not in most people's opinions, so why do some people think that it's okay to give it an electric shock. I don't see the difference; pain is pain.

And if it's not actually hurting the animal, why is the animal keeping away from the area where it's getting the shock?

Even if the shock is just causing the animal surprise rather than actual pain, it's still causing stress levels to rise, which is unpleasant and frightening for the animal.

Is that really the way to treat a living creature that you're supposed to care about?

It's about balance and what's in the animals best overall interest. Our cat got zapped maybe half a dozen times during the training phase. In return he can safely enjoy the garden. Keeping him in was causing him huge amounts of stress. Was that kind? Was it better than being zapped a few times? We rent a large rural property. Cat fencing it wasn't remotely practical. We have lots of trees that would have had to be pruned back substantially not to mention the huge cost. We could have done a catio but then he wouldn't have been in the garden with us and I can't see him being happy stuck in an outdoor cage which is what it really is. He would have been trying to get out every window and every door each time one of the kids went in and out. The months we had to wait for it to be installed were not nice for him or us! For us, in this house, this really was the best solution. He's happily sat out in the garden now with the kids playing. He's not stuck in a tiny outdoor cage that he's trying to escape. He has nearly two acres to play in.