How To Clicker Train Your Dog TO Stay In The Yard

Would you like it if your dog would stay in your yard without having to build a fence or install an invisible fence?  Most people probably are not willing to take the time and make the effort required to achieve this task but it is possible for you clicker train your dog to stay put.

Some people would tell you that you shouldn’t do this because it’s not safe for your dog.  They reason that even the most well trained dog sometimes has uncontrollable urges and might dart out into the street after a cat or some other unforeseen circumstance and the truth is yes that’s possible. So it’s up to each and every one of you to weigh the risks and look at your specific situation to see if you think it’s for you.

By Steve Benjamin on 12/01/2009

Draw the lines yourself

Would you like to train your dog to stay in your yard without resorting to electrical shock? There is a way to do it that is inexpensive, takes about the same amount of time, and is just as reliable as the electronic containment systems commercially available.

Electronic obstacles

There are potential problems with containment systems that rely on electrical shock to punish a dog for crossing a boundary.

• Electronic containments systems can create phobias in dogs. There is no way to control or determine what the dog is focused on when it receives the shock. The dog could be looking at a squirrel running up a tree across the boundary, or at the next-door neighbor, the neighbor’s dog, or the neighbor’s young child. Whatever the dog is focused on when it receives the aversive (shock) could become associated with the aversive. The next time the dog looks at the tree, or sees the neighbor or child, it may growl or act in another aggressive manner in response.

  Conversely, some dogs shut down after receiving an aversive shock. They can become highly stressed; some dogs won’t leave the porch or deck, or even the house. These dogs assume that anything they do outside may result in an aversive.

• Electronic containments systems can be beaten by many dogs. With systems that provide audio warning beeps, the dogs realize that the beep itself does not harm them. They stop at the beep, and while the electronic collar resets, the dog advances across the boundary before the collar can be reset and the shock delivered. Nearly all electronic containments systems sold in stores for self-installment work this way.

  Another system works a little differently. After a few seconds of beeping, the collar delivers a shock if the dog is still within the boundary zone. The dog doesn’t have to move forward to get shocked; it must learn to back out of the zone to avoid the shock. But if the dog runs right across the boundary zone, he is not shocked. Why? The dog runs too fast for the collar to respond (it beeps for about two seconds and then delivers the shock—any dog at full speed can cover a lot of ground in two seconds). Dogs learn that if they run fast enough, they can go wherever they want and avoid the shock. Many dogs learn to bolt as soon as they are let outside; once this happens the fence is totally ineffective.

• When a dog does run across the boundary (and gets shocked or not) it is stuck. Dogs run out of the yard, but walk back. So even if a dog avoids a shock leaving the yard, it does not understand to use the same strategy to come back. As a result, many dogs don’t come home at all.
• Electronic containment systems are expensive even for small areas—then add the time and effort to install them.

Since most people don’t want to even think about shocking their dogs, boundary training is an alternative way to solve the problem.

Read the rest of the article here on the ClickerTraining.com Blog

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