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Tag: dog fence training

March 19, 2019

DogWatch Dog Story: Mudge

Mudge the St. Bernard from Chanhassen is a DogWatch dog, but his family didn’t always work with DogWatch of the Twin Cities. With their previous dog, Mudge’s parents bought a dog fence from another company and it worked well to keep that dog in the yard. When they got Mudge, though, they decided to call us at DogWatch to help train him.

We put up boundary flags to show Mudge the boundaries of his yard and got to work. Mudge’s mom told us from the beginning: “He’s the sweetest puppy ever, but he doesn’t want to walk on the leash. He won’t try to pull you around, he’ll just lay down and not want to get back up.” And she was exactly right!

We had to get creative to train Mudge. Typically, we bring dogs around the yard on a leash over and over to help them learn where the boundary is and to stay inside the flag line. But if a huge St. Bernard doesn’t want to walk, that doesn’t quite work. Instead we focused on showing Mudge one flag at a time, we got his favorite toys involved, asked the neighbors to let their dogs out, and walked around with him off-leash (not usually recommended!).

After four days, we were happy and Mudge was happy. Finally, he was able to just take a nap in the yard. And his owners were able to trust that he wouldn’t walk off, even if they went to get the mail or went inside.

March 7, 2019

DogWatch Dog Story: Vinnie

Vinnie the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy is a mild, sweet guy from Eden Prairie. When his parents got him, they had raised their kids and accomplished many things, but they had NEVER had a dog. Not even when they were kids. So they were a little nervous and wanted any help they could get.

They took a puppy class at PetSmart where they heard about DogWatch of the Twin Cities. They liked the fact that a dog fence would allow them to spend time outside with Vinnie without a leash and without a physical fence. They wanted some help decided where and how to install the hidden fence. “Should we cover the whole yard? Do an hourglass shape with the wire so Vinnie can be in the front yard or back yard, but can’t travel between the two?”

With some consideration and advice, we at DogWatch ended up giving Vinnie access to the front yard, back yard, and one large side yard. But the skinny side yard with hostas was off limits – we used the wire to cut off Vinnie from causing any trouble.

Vinnie is a little sensitive and nervous, so we started training him on a beep-only function. He didn’t receive a correction from his DogWatch collar until day 2 of training when he had done a few laps around the yard and started learning about his boundary. After 4 days and slowly increasing the shock level, Vinnie learned where he couldn’t go, but he also learned where he COULD go! He was afraid to get too close to the flags, but he wasn’t afraid to chase a ball in the front yard or sniff around the trees in the back yard.

We love working with unique dogs like Vinnie and unique dog people like his parents. We can help find the most effective ways to contain dogs and make dog owners’ lives easier.

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