For those that don't know us, we live just outside Mt. Sterling Kentucky in a beautiful neighborhood with WAY to many rules. Not that all rules are bad, but I'm a huge fan of living and let live. As long as you're not making a nuclear bomb next door or running a brothel, hey, it's your piece of dirt have at it. Not everyone feels the same way. For example, our subdivision with 17 houses is literally in the middle of acres and acres of farm land and we have a leash law. Maybe I'm old school, but when I grew up, if there was a mean dog in the neighbor hood, you rode your bike faster past his house and never, EVER, went into his yard after a miss hit baseball! You didn't expect a maximum security wireless lock-down facility for the animal, you just understood that if you ever saw the dog not to mess with it and for God sake, don't make eye contact! Besides that, our dog Duke is a licker, not a biter, dumb but lovable. In other words, he fits in well here.
Along with our leash law we also have a "no fence" law.(Did I mention there are a lot of rules?) With the combination of these two rules it leaves you with a choice of becoming a cat person...(not a chance!) or have a tiny ankle eater that barks incisively at every mouse fart and shadow movement. We decided on making an option number 3. The Mac-Daddy, keep you pet under wraps, underground fence!
This is a product that I found on the internet with a wonderful commercial of a family playing in the yard of their two story Colonial style home with their beloved golden retriever and I'm thinking, "Heck yeah, that could be us!" By the way, I'm an infomercial junkie. If you want to sell this ol'boy a frying pan with a tilling attachment that removes stains from your carpet and runs off lawn clippings, all you gotta do is put it in front of a Colonial House and tell me about free shipping and you've got your self a customer! Well, after slapping down the credit card and spending a Saturday laying high voltage wire around the perimeter of our house, which, sadly, still looked like the brick ranch style and not the Colonial. I grab the "training video" and pop it in for some advice on how to keep our man eating beast of a dog confined with in the newly laid highly charged underground fence. Once again, I see the dream home with the all the trimmings but this time I learn how to work with Duke by taking his favorite treats and his fondest toy out to play in the yard and introduce him to his "new" surroundings. According to the nice lady on the video, my dog will feel a mild corrective vibration and will relate the discomfort to the flagged area where the fence is, causing him to stay with in confines and eventually have free reign of our yard. Simple, right? Well, off we go with bacon bits in hand and his toy skunk he has had since he came to live with us. As we were playing, I was constantly reassuring him with praise AND bacon! Life was good....WE could have been making the infomercial! However, it was time to get a little closer to the fence for his 1st encounter. As I tossed his toy up to the flag, Duke runs up to it and I hear this ZZZZZZZAP!!! At which point Duke runs full steam....NOT towards me, but AWAY from me through the neighborhood yelping like...well, like he'd been SHOCKED. After pulling him out from under the neighbor's bush down the street we come back into our yard and try another round. However, Duke is no longer the happy little Labrodoodle that wants to lick your face off. What I have now is this nervous, twitching fur ball that no longer will play with his stuffed animal and refuses to eat bacon! SERIOUSLY?, What dog won't eat bacon?!! I put a small piece next to his mouth and he clinches his teeth and tightens his lips so that you can't even force it in his mouth! And the toy? Well, now when you show it to him he drops his head and looks the other way! Poor Duke.
Well long story short, that was a week or so ago, and he has finally has come to grasps with the idea of staying in the yard and things are looking up. He now will nibble a small piece of bacon, however he's still leery about that mean old toy that "bit" him. (I told you he fits in well here.)
Along with our leash law we also have a "no fence" law.(Did I mention there are a lot of rules?) With the combination of these two rules it leaves you with a choice of becoming a cat person...(not a chance!) or have a tiny ankle eater that barks incisively at every mouse fart and shadow movement. We decided on making an option number 3. The Mac-Daddy, keep you pet under wraps, underground fence!
This is a product that I found on the internet with a wonderful commercial of a family playing in the yard of their two story Colonial style home with their beloved golden retriever and I'm thinking, "Heck yeah, that could be us!" By the way, I'm an infomercial junkie. If you want to sell this ol'boy a frying pan with a tilling attachment that removes stains from your carpet and runs off lawn clippings, all you gotta do is put it in front of a Colonial House and tell me about free shipping and you've got your self a customer! Well, after slapping down the credit card and spending a Saturday laying high voltage wire around the perimeter of our house, which, sadly, still looked like the brick ranch style and not the Colonial. I grab the "training video" and pop it in for some advice on how to keep our man eating beast of a dog confined with in the newly laid highly charged underground fence. Once again, I see the dream home with the all the trimmings but this time I learn how to work with Duke by taking his favorite treats and his fondest toy out to play in the yard and introduce him to his "new" surroundings. According to the nice lady on the video, my dog will feel a mild corrective vibration and will relate the discomfort to the flagged area where the fence is, causing him to stay with in confines and eventually have free reign of our yard. Simple, right? Well, off we go with bacon bits in hand and his toy skunk he has had since he came to live with us. As we were playing, I was constantly reassuring him with praise AND bacon! Life was good....WE could have been making the infomercial! However, it was time to get a little closer to the fence for his 1st encounter. As I tossed his toy up to the flag, Duke runs up to it and I hear this ZZZZZZZAP!!! At which point Duke runs full steam....NOT towards me, but AWAY from me through the neighborhood yelping like...well, like he'd been SHOCKED. After pulling him out from under the neighbor's bush down the street we come back into our yard and try another round. However, Duke is no longer the happy little Labrodoodle that wants to lick your face off. What I have now is this nervous, twitching fur ball that no longer will play with his stuffed animal and refuses to eat bacon! SERIOUSLY?, What dog won't eat bacon?!! I put a small piece next to his mouth and he clinches his teeth and tightens his lips so that you can't even force it in his mouth! And the toy? Well, now when you show it to him he drops his head and looks the other way! Poor Duke.
Well long story short, that was a week or so ago, and he has finally has come to grasps with the idea of staying in the yard and things are looking up. He now will nibble a small piece of bacon, however he's still leery about that mean old toy that "bit" him. (I told you he fits in well here.)
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