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By George Rowand
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
Keeping a family dog happy, healthy, energetic and in its own yard has become more and more problematic as yards have become smaller and smaller. Mike Schultz thinks his product can solve that problem. He’s the local dealer for PetSafe Hidden Fence.
“In subdivisions, you can’t put up chain-link fences or 6-foot tall cedar fences to keep the dog in your yard,” Schultz explained. “You either have to put it on a chain all day — which is not good for them — or you need Hidden Fence.”
Flagging interest
Schultz said his product differs from earlier, different types of invisible restraint, which require a buried wire for the signal and a collar for the dog.
“A lot of people with dogs don’t do this system because of what they’ve heard,” he said. “ ‘Oh, it’s going to hurt your dog,’ they say, but this one is improved. It’s a gentle approach.”
Schultz said that after he and his staff bury the line, they take the time to train the dog as to the line’s whereabouts and what it will mean to the dog if it gets too close to the line.
The boundary is set up with tiny flags.
“Flags are put up during training, and then they gradually fade out,” he said. “You take one, skip one, take one and skip one. Then a month later you take another one, skip one, and pretty soon, they’re all down.
“The dog knows the boundary, and won’t approach it after they’ve been trained.
“The dogs get 50 to 100 very low-level corrections, which gives them a really good idea of what’s going on,” he continued. “The collar can be set to tickle, instead of shock, the dog.”
And, as Pavlov proved about a century ago, a properly trained dog will associate the flags with the correction. Over time the dog will come to stop short of the flags, and then — when the flags are removed — of the area where the flags had been.
Charlie Allen, a dog trainer, was with Schultz at the time of the interview. Allen was throwing a Frisbee to three energetic dogs, all of whom had been trained. They would fly after the Frisbee, but if it was thrown past the flagged area, they would stop well short and would not go further.
“We’re not going to install
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