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Volume 4
Number 2
April 2003

Simply Shocking
Electronic containment systems (aka fenceless fences) may be
convenient for dog owners, but they are not safe for dogs.
By Pat Miller

Rufus is a typical adolescent Labrador Retriever: Large, full of
energy, and eager to explore beyond the boundaries of his Richmond,
Utah, yard when released from the confinement of his pen. The Ashbys,
his owners, are a typical Lab family: Dad, mom, and several kids, all
of whom possess an interest in being responsible pet owners.

Rufus is a young Labrador about to undergo veterinary treatment for
electric and/or chemical burns caused by an electronic collar that
malfunctioned when it got wet. Note the hole burned into his flesh by
the collar's metal "probes."

As often happens, Rufus' energy was a bit too much for the younger
children. Despite several attempts to train him not to jump, he was
still knocking the little Ashbys flat. And despite the family's best
efforts, Rufus kept escaping beyond the limits of his own unfenced
yard.

Imagine the Ashbys' delight when, shopping at a "big box" pet supply
store, they came across a product that promised to solve both
problems with the push of a button. The product combines
an "electronic containment system" with an additional remote control
unit for use with supervised training. In other words, a shock
collar. The family bought the unit, took it home, and started
training Rufus.

They used the product for a few days and were quite pleased. Rufus
was quickly learning not to jump on the kids, and life was already
becoming easier. The Ashbys made plans to lay the underground wire
for the containment system over the upcoming weekend. Meanwhile,
Rufus was confined to his pen, wearing his collar, while the family
was gone all day.

One rainy day afternoon that week, upon arriving home, Darren Ashby,
an electronic engineer, sent his oldest son out to the pen to take
Rufus for a walk. The boy came back in and said Rufus wouldn't let
the boy get near him. Dad went out to help, and was horrified by what
he found.

"What I saw made me sick," says Ashby. "Rufus had this sickly green
color around his neck, under the training collar. There was this
nasty wet/burnt hair and flesh smell. Something was obviously wrong.
I carefully removed the collar to find a huge gaping hole in Rufus'
neck, right under one of the training collar prongs."

Dr. Susan Benson, of the Animal Medical Center in Preston, Idaho,
treated Rufus' injuries. "This was one of the worst electrical burns
I have seen," Dr. Benson reports, "other than dogs who have had
contact with high power lines."

Dr. Benson says the incident has made her much more wary of the fence
systems. She feels the collars should never be left on dogs who are
unsupervised - which, of course, defeats the purpose for most dog
owners, who want to use the systems to give the dogs free access to
their yards while the owners are away at work all day.

What's not to like?

There is no question that underground electronic containment systems
are immensely popular. They are readily available in pet stores,
online, and from most pet-supply catalogs. They have become as common
as fleas, and no wonder - for as little as $125, the responsible pet
owner can let Fido play on up to five acres, an area that would cost
thousands of dollars to fence otherwise. For just another $100, an
owner can purchase a system that promises to fence up to 25 acres;
extension kits cost $50 per half-acre, for a total of $1,500 for the
full 25-acre capacity. Other options include a solar-powered system,
or a collar that also promises to shock the dog for barking while it
keeps him in the invisibly fenced area.

In addition, the electronic containment systems can be used in
communities that prohibit visible fences, a growing and unfortunate
trend. They can be installed in terrain where a physical fence would
be difficult or impossible to erect. From the average dog owner's
perspective, what's not to like?

Unfortunately, from Fido's point of view, plenty, including but not
limited to the potential for electrical burns around the neck. And
unfortunately for the Fidos of the world who are living with one of
the electronic collars around their necks, none of the companies that
produce the fences are very forthcoming about the negative aspects of
electronic containment systems. And there are many.

As a professional trainer and behavior consultant, I have had ample
opportunities to deal with the fallout from shock fences that have
caused problems with clients' dogs. I also regularly hear electronic
fence horror stories from my peers within the professional dog
training community. I am admittedly biased against using shock
collars, so I undoubtedly seize upon every new report of an e-collar-
related problem to support my position.

My philosophy of training is firmly grounded in gentle methods that
encourage a relationship between dog and human based on mutual trust
and respect. The idea of deliberately shocking a beloved family
member around the neck (or anywhere else, for that matter) is so
repugnant to me that I cannot conceive of a training situation in
which I would be willing to use a shock collar for my dogs, or for
anyone else's. But malfunctioning units and emotional argument aside,
there are many other reasons why I vehemently steer clients far away
from non-visible fences.

Dogs left vulnerable

One of those reasons has been hanging around our house for three days
now. A black Labrador with an e-collar on visits us from time to
time - mute testimony to the fact that the collars don't always work.

It's not wise to pick a hunting breed with a great need for exercise
if you live in a housing development that disallows fences.
Shelter workers from around the country tell of the numbers of stray
dogs who are brought in wearing them. When their owners retrieve
them, some will nonchalantly admit that they neglected to replace the
batteries. Others admit that their dogs will run through the fence to
chase a squirrel, or to follow another dog, or to visit an alluring
female in season.

When for the umpteenth time I return our visiting Lab to his home a
half-mile away, the owner tells me that the fence is out (again!)
because of a recent electrical storm. He asks me how he is supposed
to keep his dog home in the meantime - as if there is no other
rational alternative but to let him run loose. Bring him in the
house, I answer, but I know my suggestion falls on deaf ears.
Electronic containment systems not only give dog owners a false sense
of security about the reliability of the containment, but also fail
to protect the dog from intruders. Marauding canines, dog thiefs,
neighborhood bullies, angry service persons, rabid skunks or
raccoons - all have easy access to a dog who lives inside a fenceless
fence.

A biting commentary

In addition to leaving the dog vulnerable to attacks, electronic
containment systems fail to provide any physical barrier to protect
unwary passers-by from the dog. The list of documented cases of
electronic fence-related aggression grows longer by the day.
The stimulus of passing cars, kids on bikes, people walking their
dogs, squirrels climbing in and around street trees, etc., tends to
goad some dogs into a state of angry arousal. If the dog is aroused
enough to test the limits of the fence, he gets shocked - which
conditions him to associate the pain of the shock with whatever he
was focused on when he got shocked.

Further, any unsuspecting visitor who crosses the invisible barrier
into the dog's reach can be the unwitting victim of the dog's pent-up
frustration. Worse, if the dog's arousal reaches a high enough peak
that he runs through the fence, the immediacy of that shock is likely
to add to the intensity of the dog's aggressive behavior in that
attack.

I just got off the phone an hour ago with a family that is looking
for a new home for their eight-year-old Schnauzer, Max, who has lived
in his backyard within a nonvisible shock fence since he was a
youngster. But about two years ago, he began displaying some
disturbing aggressive behavior.

His owners believe that a serviceperson who was intolerant of dogs
may have kicked Max, setting off an escalating spiral of aggression
that just recently resulted in a Level 3 bite to the leg of a
visiting child (see "Ian Dunbar's Bite Level Classifications," end of
story). Without a physical fence, they were neither able to protect
Max from the serviceperson, nor, more recently, protect the child
from Max.

Compounding the problem, their homeowner's association has rules
prohibiting physical fences, so, even recognizing the drawbacks, they
continue to use the electronic fence to keep Max contained. In
addition to the continued danger this presents both to the dog and to
anyone who crosses the fence line, any additional shocks to Max's
neck - even the triggering of the warning tone - are likely to add to
his level of stress, arousal, and aggression, increasing the risk of
more bites.

The first critical step to modifying aggression requires eliminating
the conditions that contribute to it; in this case, the totality of
environmental circumstances created by the fence.

Max has always been a backyard dog and the parents are reluctant to
try to bring him in the house. They realize that putting Max in a
small, chain-link pen for the rest of his life is not a reasonable
solution. The children are devastated at the thought of losing their
canine pal, and I had to deliver the bad news that finding a lifelong
loving home - or any good home - for an eight-year-old dog who bites
is not a very realistic option. Their choices are to significantly
alter Max's (and their own) lifestyle to better protect him and
manage his behavior, or euthanasia.

Three months ago, I did a private consultation with a woman whose
Airedale had started running through the electronic fence and biting.
When Andy was a pup, he was allowed to run loose in his laid-back
mountain community just outside Chattanooga. As more families moved
into the neighborhood, Andy's wandering started to draw complaints,
so his owner had an electronic fence installed. This particular
system included training as part of the installation package, so a
man came out to the house to teach Andy that if he ignored the tone
that warned him he was approaching the fence boundary, he would get a
shock. The system had appeared to work well for several years. But
recently, for no reason that his owner could discern, Andy had
started going through his fence.

The first incident involved a Golden Retriever passing by outside the
fence on a leash. Andy rolled the dog, but no injuries resulted. The
owner wrote the incident off as a one-time thing, and life went on as
usual. A couple of months later, Andy ran through the fence again -
this time, after a small dog. This time the canine victim suffered
injuries serious enough to require veterinary attention, and Andy's
owner realized something needed to be done. She called the fence
company, which sent someone out to "retrain" Andy to the fence.

The "trainer" put a shock collar around Andy's neck and one around
his groin. He led Andy to the fence and shocked him repeatedly.
According to his owner, Andy screamed and bit at his flanks; the
sight was so gruesome that his owner couldn't watch - she went inside
and the torture continued without her. When the trainer was done he
came in and told her that Andy had bitten him in the leg - but there
was no harm done - he announced somewhat proudly that he was
protected by the leather chaps he had begun wearing because so many
dogs tried to bite him during the training.

Two weeks later Andy charged through the fence again, knocked a young
girl into a ditch and inflicted Level 4 bites. Andy was ultimately
euthanized.

Other negative reactions, while not as extreme, give us clues to how
very traumatic the shock collars can be. Some dogs refuse to go into
their yards after being introduced to the system. Others must be
loaded into the family car and driven across the fence line - even
when not wearing the collar - just to be taken for a walk around the
block.

Being responsible

One of the leading electronic fence companies proudly states: "Our
mission is to keep your pets safe. We believe in Safe Pets and Happy
People." You might think that companies whose ads emphasize the
advantages of keeping your dog safely confined in your yard would be
sure to provide consumer warnings about the potential hazards related
to their use, and would bend over backward to make amends for any
inadvertent malfunction of the product.

Not so, according to Darren Ashby, the owner of Rufus, the burned
Labrador I mentioned at the beginning of this article. Ashby sent the
company a letter of complaint - complete with graphic photographs of
his dog's wounds - and after a delay, got a response. The company
offered to pay the vet bill, but only if Ashby signed a document
stating that the company was not at fault. The letter stated that
Ashby had two days to decide whether he would sign the statement.
When Ashby called the company to complain about this response, the
contact person told him that the company's lawyers said it was
Ashby's fault for leaving the collar on his dog in the rain. She told
him his only alternative to signing the document was to sue. Ashby
read the product manual from front to back, and is adamant that there
were no warnings about using the collar in inclement weather. He is
undecided about whether to pursue legal action against the company.

Rufus was lucky - he survived the trauma of his collar experience.
Andy was not so lucky. The jury is still out on Max. There are
countless other dogs out there struggling with the sometimes lethal
uncertainties of the electronic shock collar fence. Some of those
dogs will lose the struggle. Don't even take the chance that your dog
might be one of them.

-by Pat Miller
Pat Miller, WDJ's Training Editor, is also a freelance author and
Certified Pet Dog Trainer in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She is the
president of the Board of Directors of the Association of Pet Dog
Trainers, and recently published her first book, The Power of
Positive Dog Training.

Classifications of Bites
Well-known veterinarian, dog trainer, and behaviorist Ian Dunbar has
developed a six-level system of classifying bites, in order to make
discussions of biting behavior more consistent and understandable.
Those levels are:

Level 1 Bite - Harassment but no skin contact. This is the
so-called snap. Don't kid yourself. A snap is an intended
"air bite" from a dog who did not intend to connect. He
didn't just "miss." It is a lovely warning signal, telling us that
we need to identify his stressors and either desensitize
him or manage his behavior to avoid exposing him to the
things that cause him undue stress.

Level 2 Bite - Tooth contact on skin but no puncture. Again,
this is a bite from a dog who didn't intend to break skin,
and a warning that this dog is serious. It's a very good idea
to remove the dog's stressors at this point, before he graduates
to the next level.

Level 3 Bite - Skin punctures, one to four holes from a
single bite (all punctures shallower than the length of the
canine tooth).

Level 4 Bite - One to four holes, deep black bruising with
punctures deeper than the length of the canine (which means
the dog bit and clamped down) or slashes in both directions
from the puncture (the dog bit and shook his head).

Level 5 Bite - Multiple-bite attack with deep punctures,
or multiple attack incident.

Level 6 Bite - Killed victim and/or consumed flesh.

WHAT YOU CAN DO . . .
Avoid the "necessity" to use an electronic containment system by
checking homeowners' association rules regarding fences before you
buy a home. If you have only a small yard and/or a sedentary life-
style, don't get a breed that requires lots of exercise to stay happy
and well-adjusted.

Copyright 2003 Whole Dog Journal. Reprinted with permission, Belvoir
Publications, Inc.
For subscription and other information, call (800) 424-7887 or
visit www.whole-dog-journal.com.

Posted on SHARE Yahoo group 11/10/06