Pippa and the Fence

I made a decision on the fence. You may recall my plight that I recently wrote about which was that Pippa was escaping under the fence in my backyard. I got a couple of quotes for privacy fences and a quote for Dog Watch, the underground dog fence. While the privacy fence would have been very nice and I think I would have really enjoy it, the price was high and I didn't want to get a loan for a fence. So, I went with Dog Watch which was still expensive but a lot less expensive than the privacy fence.

I had scheduled the fence installation for Wednesday, May 6 at noon and my dad was kind enough to go over to my house and wait for them until I could get there about 2:30 p.m. As I was leaving work around 2:00 p.m., I noticed a text from my dad that said the fence people still had not shown up. So, I called them and long story short, after confirming the Wednesday appointment, the guy put it in his calendar as Thursday which was extremely frustrating and annoying. Alas, we are all human and make mistakes. He apologized profusely and offered to knock the price down a little (which ended up being a whole $49 - a disappointing discount to say the least). 

Finally, they were able to come out on Thursday, May 7, and install the line and then on Monday, May 11 they came over and installed the transmitter inside the house thanks to my great cousin-in-law who was able to come over and let them in and hang out until they were finished with the installation. That afternoon the guy came to start working with/training Pippa. The training was all of about 20 minutes which was a little odd. I guess I expected it to take longer. During this "training" session, Pip ran into the line, got shocked, and jumped about five feet off the ground. Seriously, I've never seen a dog jump so high in my life. Unfortunately when she jumped, she jumped back into the line and got shocked more. This was rather traumatizing to say the least - for both me and her. 

We then moved to the front yard where she got shocked a couple of times. After each shock, the plan is to get her to the middle of the yard and reassure her. At this point, after being shocked a few times, the poor dog was stiff as a board and wouldn't move. I finally got her to go back inside and I finished up the paperwork with the fence guy and when I went back in she was no where to be found. I finally found her curled up in a ball on the guest bed. 

The next couple of days we walked inside of the white flags which are there for training until she gets used to hearing the beep that goes off before the shock zone. If the flags were on my right, she stayed on my left and vice versa. She didn't want to have anything to do with the flags. It basically got to the point where she didn't want to go outside at all and when I got the shock collar out to put on her, she would run away from me. Bless her! 

Thursday afternoon, the guy came back to evaluate her progress and we worked with her in the front yard some and she ran into the fence and then ran back to the porch and hid behind a chair. So, the fence is doing it's job. After the trainer guy left, I let her out back without the leash and she stayed as close to the house as possible but then started venturing out into the yard some. I think she will get livelier the more she gets used to having the fence there. Her behavior is completely normal according to the fence people and he said it would take a couple of weeks or so before she's back to her old back yard ways. In the next few days, I'll start taking flags up a few at a time and I'll be anxious to see how things go once all the flags are gone. Surely she will get to a point where when she hears the beep she'll turn around, that is the point after all. 

Needless to say, it's been quite a shocking adventure, but at least she won't be sneaking out under the fence any time soon.