The Holtonian

Copper Contained

This past weekend I put in an invisble fence in our yard for copper. It was suprisingly really easy to install, took me a few hours, but easy to hook up. Basically you run the wire around the perimeter of your property (or where you want the dog confined to) and just make sure you make a loop and hook it up to the unit (ours is in the garage). With the sod still fresh it was easy to just pull it up and throw the wire under there.

Copper's generally got the hang of it. I mean I didn't watch the instructional DVD, I just sort of took him outside and tried to show him the border, though he really wasn't interested. He pretty much got shocked, freaked out and gave me that, "YOU EVIL MAN!" look, and then ran strait to the door and wouldn't budge away from the doorstep. The next day was better he'd go do his thing, then run strait back to the door.

Then yesterday it was even better he felt comfortable to play in the yard, still not sure of his boudaries yet though, just knows not to go too far from the house. But theres some kids that walk through our neigbhors yard and copper goes beserk when he sees them and he broke the barrier and got out yesterday. Its not terrible when he gets out, just a bit embarrasing. But he's usually gone for 30 minutes, then comes back after he's gotten it out of his system. When he was a younger pup he'd go till dark.

So as long as we sort of watch him to make sure he doesn't run after anything, the fence works. I'm afraid now he'll know what it takes to get out of the yard and feel a good shock is worth the freedom, hopefully he's not that dumb/smart.

As far as the punk kids not sure what to say to them. When I was a kid I used to cut through this old ladies yard all the time and she's always threaten to call the cops, which of course made me go through her yard more. I'd hate to be a square and have to ask them, "A gee fellas do ya think you could maybe not go through our yard that'd be super thanks guys...." And they don't even live in our neighborhood, they live 1 over, so its not like they're my neighbors. Short of putting land minds in my yard not sure what I can do. If only i could convince them to wear copper's collar. Though the problem is they're not going through our yard, they go through the house next to ours, which is vacant (still for sale). Maybe put some gargoyles around the yard, maybe that'd scare them away, specially the ones that come to life like in that cartoon... Gargoyles... good cartoon.