‘Stay’ or Get Zapped: Animal Containment Fields for Your Yard

Shadow, a fluffy, 7-year-old keeshond, stops on the slope of his front lawn and eyes the knee-high flags neatly lined up along the curb.

“Let’s go!” sings trainer Duncan Clark, tugging on the dog’s leash. Shadow breaks into a trot alongside the flags as his owner, Sherri Craighill, jogs in the street close by.

“Yes, where’s Mommy?” Clark asks Shadow as the dog slows. “Where’s mommy?”

Clark pauses. “I’m going to let him get the beep,” he calls to Craighill, tugging Shadow closer to the flags until the dog suddenly throws himself into reverse, backing up a few feet.

Craighill cheers. “That’s my pretty boy,” she coos. “Nice Shadow, nice.”

Every day dogs like Shadow can be found warily approaching lines of small flags that mark the perimeters of their turf. It’s part of the mystery and magic of a hot product called “the electronic fence,” or, as the industry prefers, a “pet containment system.”

Sales of the system, in which a wire buried in the ground sends a signal--first a beep, then a mild shock--through the animal’s collar if it nears the “fence,” are booming in some areas. Invisible Fence, the company that markets the system that Craighill and more than 100 of her neighbors have, says its collars are worn by about 15,000 animals in the metropolitan area. Dealers of other brands of electronic fences also report brisk sales.

Here’s why: restrictions on traditional fences in some neighborhoods, less tolerance of pets running loose, and long work days that make it difficult for many pet owners to walk their animals.

Nationally, sales of electronic fences have grown from $8 million in 1990 to $150 million this year, according to industry estimates, even as some people question the humaneness of zapping Rover to keep him from, ah, roving.

“In today’s lifestyle, people are very hectic,” said Rick Mellinger, president of IFCO Enterprises, maker of the Invisible Fence system and one of a half-dozen companies marketing electronic fences nationally. “They have less time to walk the dog, play with the dog, take care of it.”

Busy pet owners appear to present a fertile market. An Ohio company, OurPets Co., is introducing a $20 bird mirror that allows an owner to record a message for his favorite feathered friend and a similar line of “talking” plush toys, in the $17 to $25 range, for dogs.

Other companies hope to strike it big with electronic pet doors that open and close whenever Rover feels the urge--again, a special collar triggers the action--and automatic feeders that dispense several days’ worth of pet food while the owners are away.

“We’re a society where everybody works now, both husband and wife, and the kids are in day care,” said Nick Bonge, of High-Tech Pet Products, a California company that recently began selling the automatic doors and feeders. “The poor pet’s left all alone, so I guess we have to have machines to take care of them.”

The twist is, even as people now work longer hours, with entire families absent from the home all day, today’s animal owners are more likely than previous generations to treat their pets as family members.

Recent surveys by the American Animal Hospital Assn. found that 84% of owners who took part refer to themselves as their pet’s “mom” or “dad,” 63% celebrate their pet’s birthday, and a third talk to their pet on the phone.

Pets are “full-fledged members of the family who play a critical role in today’s society,” said the association’s president, Michael Thomas.

At the Craighill home in suburban Herndon, Va., Invisible Fence installers buried a thin cable around the family’s yard, marked it with flags and put a transmitter in the garage. The transmitter signals a receiver on Shadow’s collar if he approaches the underground wire.

The flags stay up a few weeks as a visual reminder of the beep or mild shock--industry people prefer to call it a “correction”--that awaits the dog that strays too far. The animal is thus trained to turn back at the sound of the beep.

Craighill, an accounting software consultant, and her husband, Lang, a strategic planner for a high-tech company, installed an electronic fence themselves four years ago. Both work long hours, she said, and restrictive covenants in their neighborhood made it difficult to enclose their yard with a fence. They brought in Invisible Fence this month to install a larger system.

Craighill said that she resisted an electronic fence at first but that their dogs, Shadow and Lily, adjusted quickly.

“It’s so much easier for us,” she said, “and they get so much exercise.”

Dealer-installed systems don’t come cheap. Prices range from $500 to several thousand, but dealers counter that traditional fences cost more. A growing number of do-it-yourself electronic fences can be found in stores for less than $300.

Invisible Fence has also installed systems for pet cats, goats, potbellied pigs, horses and one wallaby, Clark said.

In some animal circles, the systems are controversial. Various breeders and shelters say that some dogs will run right through the shock zone, suffering yet another jolt if they try to return to the yard. The groups stipulate that they will not sell or place dogs in homes that have the fences; some animal behaviorists, too, criticize the systems for using pain to train.

“We’re supposed to be creative, compassionate, intelligent beings,” said Paul Owen, co-author of “The Dog Whisperer: a Compassionate, Nonviolent Approach to Dog Training.” “There should be a way that we can figure out to keep our dogs safe without shocking them.”

In response to such concerns, some companies have introduced alternative versions of the fence that use unpleasant scents, loud noises or a recording of the pet’s owner to warn it back from the border.

Norma Ryan, a terrier breeder and chairwoman of the National Capital Kennel Club, won’t sell her dogs to owners with electronic fences because, she says, she’s seen too many terriers bolt right through them. “They may yelp when they cross that line, but they’re gone,” she said.

But some animal-welfare groups such as the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have lent their support to the devices as one way to reduce the number of pets killed or hurt on roads and highways.

The Northern Virginia chapter of the society isn’t as enthusiastic. “For the protection of the animal, we don’t recommend them,” said President Edith von Stuemer, noting that pets may not be able to escape if an aggressive animal comes onto their property. “There’s nothing better than a regular fence,” von Stuemer said.

Sales figures would seem to argue otherwise. Nick Bonge, whose California company started off making non-shocking fences, recently acquiesced to consumer demand and brought out a model that beeps and zaps.

Dog owners, he said, “want something that will work and work quick, and for most people, the humanity of it is secondary to the efficacy. They’re willing to let their dogs suffer a little bit if they’re sure it’ll get the neighbors off their case.”