Containing Your Pet – Invisible Fence or Real One?

Right around this time of year I spend a great deal of time outdoors and working in the yard. Truth is, I love it. I love being outside in nice weather and I love improving the house I live in. I can also say that I absolutely love having the dogs around me when I’m doing this.

Sure, they dig up the yard in places and generally get into all kinds of areas that they aren’t supposed to, but you know.. they’re my kids – and I want them around me and I love seeing them run around in an open field or park with no restraints.

So having said that, I’ve had lots of experience with both the Invisible Fence that we currently have now as well as lots of experience with the real fence as my direct neighbor has one and we are over there all the times (and of course I bring the hounds 90% of the time as well which is awesome!)

I guess the only fair way to make this comparison is by looking at the pros and cons of each system as it pertains to pet restraint and convenience.

I’ll start with the Invisible Pet Fence

PROS

• invisible – no one sees it, it’s like a magical invisible leash that keeps your dogs in the yard. This, I love about it.
• inexpensive – kits can be had for a few hundred dollars of varying quality and type. They are so popular they’ve developed wireless ones (which I find interesting since I could hypothetically just keep it in my car)

CONS

• buried cable – I have no idea where the cables are.. and I’ve dug into them a few times, bottom line is you have to be careful.
• not 100% foolproof – from having a huge snow buildup (which the dogs could run over and escape.. *sigh*) to just running through and taking the hit.. it happens, you still have to be aware.
• shock – some people think it’s abuse or something to have the shock that they would receive. Personally, I don’t think this is a problem seeing that I’ve had my hounds 4 years and they’ve likely been shocked less then 10 times total.. and it doesn’t hurt them. I know this, since I shocked myself by mistake.. ha.. whoops.
• keeps dogs from getting out, but doesn’t keep any OTHER animals out (foxes, skunks, cats, etc.)
• runs on electricity – power outage? Don’t let your dogs out!! power surge? Well you should be hooking your system up to something like the CyberPower CP550SLG Standby UPS 550VA/330W Surge-Protected Battery Backup System or something similar to ensure that you don’t toast that pricy new equipment you just put in. Very important CON here.. power outages happen all the time, you don’t want to let your dogs out and have them run away on you. The good news on this fact is that most times the dogs don’t even test the lines after awhile so they know their boundaries and this isn’t an issue.

Real Fence

PROS

• pretty much foolproof – unless the dogs dig under it, or somehow figure out a way to climb over the silly thing – they are not getting out.
• privacy – usually the dogs are going to be quite quiet and not bother anyone since they can’t see anyone else – socially though, I’m not so sure this is a ‘pro’.
• resale value – fenced in backyards are desirable for people. You will get back the money you put into it… want to put in a pool? No problem!

CONS

• price – yes, fences are very expensive. Even if you build it yourself the price of lumber alone is unreal unless you know someone who can get you lumber at a really low sale price.
• maintenance – I hate painting.. and staining.. end of story.

So having said all of that, if I had to go back and do it all again.. which would I choose? I guess there really is no ‘right’ answer – at the time – the money which we had to spend was certainly a factor so if that is a major factor, obviously the best choice would be the invisible fence – but if it wasn’t a factor, I would definitely have a great big real fence all around my backyard. I love the looks of some of them, the privacy would be great and as far as the dogs go, I could let them out all day and night with a nice dog house and not have to worry one bit about them.