Dog lead?

[curtis rosche]

We have our mastiff on a coated steel lead from tractor supply, about 60ft long. We have had to replace the cable every few months due to wear on it. The plastic coating comes off and it frays and rusts and kinks and breaks.
What do you use for your dog? What would be a better alternative to use as a lead?
I know training to stay around would be good and we are working on that, but till then there's too many animals around that he wants to run off to see

[Matt Marsh]

Have you considered a radio fence? Best invention since sliced bread!

Seriously, they really work! I bought an Innotech brand quite a few years back when my previous lab was a pup. They're still merely training aids, but it speeds up the training exponentially. The model I have runs right around the $200 mark, and is rated for up to 25 acres. The area around my yard took 1650 feet of wire. Lightning took out my first power unit, so I replaced it when my last lab pup came along. The set that I bought this time also has the handheld training remote, but I don't use it much. These collars really work best for reinforcing "NO". I have a couple different friends that use the wireless ones with good results also, but the range on those is much more limited.

[Matt Marsh]

With the giant breeds like the mastiffs, I have heard of people using two collars on them if they don't get the message with one.

[Matt Meiser]

We've had great luck with a Petsafe radio fence. Dog 1 is a mutt who's been on it since 8 months, now 11-1/2. I can think of exactly 2 times he's run through other than slowly drifting across over several weeks when we forgot to check his battery. And there was one incident where my mom let him out of the car on the wrong side of the fence and he couldn't get IN. Dog 2 we had for about 8 months was a year-old pit and we got him trained on it too. Couldn't get him trained to behave any other way but the fence worked...

But, when we were first looking into it we talked to a number of people with mixed responses. Some had trouble some thought it was great. The biggest common denominator was dog age. Those who got it when the dog was older had more trouble. Apparently a few shocks for a young dog sticks with them!

We also didn't do the whole "imaginary gate" thing and I have to wonder if that's not part of the deal too. The ONLY time ours gets to cross the line is in the car. We live in the country and have 2+ acres fenced so there's lots of room to exercise and we don't take him out for walks which wouldn't be real safe. We learned by accident that the car isn't a problem crossing so we just leave the collar on full time much to the dismay of the trainer we took Dog 2 to. Just met with someone from a dog rescue with lots of experience and she does the same.

[curtis rosche]

A radio fence would be very hard, the house is entirely surrounded by woods, and his current reach is into the woods so that he can do his business off of the yard.

[Matt Meiser]

In woods some people just put it under leaves and sticks. There's also a wireless system. An uncle has one of those systems and it works well on their rugged, wooded property.

[Matt Marsh]

A radio fence would be very hard, the house is entirely surrounded by woods, and his current reach is into the woods so that he can do his business off of the yard.

Yeah, the woods actually make it easier, especially if the trees are mostly hardwoods. Most of mine is in the woods, and the only places that I buried the wire is where it crosses the lawn, the driveway, and the trails that leave my yard. In the woods, I just pinned it down to the ground using aluminum tie wires, intended for chain link fencing. After a year or two of leaves falling on the wire, it's buried. The driveway was the only place that it is seriously buried. Where it crosses the lawn and trails, I just used a wide blade sidewalk scraper to make a shallow trench, stuffed the wire in and stepped it down. For splicing the wire, I just used plastic 35mm film canisters and pill bottles with holes punched into the lids. Poke the wires through the lid, wirenut the splice, fill the bottle/canister with silicone, push the splice into the silicone and snap the lid shut.

[Matt Marsh]

But, when we were first looking into it we talked to a number of people with mixed responses. Some had trouble some thought it was great. The biggest common denominator was dog age. Those who got it when the dog was older had more trouble. Apparently a few shocks for a young dog sticks with them!

That's why you buy a better quality system with larger/more powerful collars. With the one that I have set on high, and the run-through gain set at max, the only way the dog is making it through is if the collar has too short of prongs for thick fur, or something else is not allowing the correction to reach the hide. For a lab sized dog low = OUCH!, medium = AHHH!, and high will suck any dangling extremities up into their torsos, and make a very long lasting impression.

We live on 40 acres, but the radio fence only surrounds about 4 or 5. In the spring when I rake and haul leaves, I haul them in a trailer behind the ATV out onto the trails leaving the fenced area. The transmitter was factory set to low, and the gain was set for only about 6 feet (3' either side of the wire). My dog decided that he really wanted to come with, so the shock was worth it. He highballed it through, yipping all the way. Before my next load of leaves, I set it to high, and adjusted the gain out to 30'. That next time it folded his legs up, and sent him tail down, howling, and running for the porch. From that day on, he never risked it again. The dogs are however smart enough to associate the shock with the collar, and because these things are only intended as a training aid, and not to be left on the dog when you're not there, they do make dummy collars for those meat-headed ones that don't get the message.

[Joe Angrisani]

I'm surprised to hear such success with a radio fence. I know of four friends who have it (including my brother-in-law), and all of them are NOT fans. In each case, the dogs learned how to overcome the system. In most cases, they learned to stop when the warning beeps started and simply lay down there for a snooze while their collar's battery died. In one case, the dog learned if he ran fast through the zone, the zapping would quickly stop and he was fine. Breeds range from Labs, Goldens, Bloodhounds and cattle dogs/Healers, to Jack Russels and various mutts.

Just something to consider, Curtis.

[Curt Harms]

We have our mastiff on a coated steel lead from tractor supply, about 60ft long. We have had to replace the cable every few months due to wear on it. The plastic coating comes off and it frays and rusts and kinks and breaks.
What do you use for your dog? What would be a better alternative to use as a lead?
I know training to stay around would be good and we are working on that, but till then there's too many animals around that he wants to run off to see

How about stainless steel cable? Here is one option, don't know how $ compare to you're using now :
http://www.mcmaster.com/#standard-wire-rope/=nrcy1s

[Lee Schierer]

I'm surprised to hear such success with a radio fence. I know of four friends who have it (including my brother-in-law), and all of them are NOT fans. In each case, the dogs learned how to overcome the system. In most cases, they learned to stop when the warning beeps started and simply lay down there for a snooze while their collar's battery died. In one case, the dog learned if he ran fast through the zone, the zapping would quickly stop and he was fine. Breeds range from Labs, Goldens, Bloodhounds and cattle dogs/Healers, to Jack Russels and various mutts.

The Innotech systems won't let the collar beep for long periods to run the battery down. If it beeps very long, it will then apply the stimulus to make the pet move. Our collars normally run over a month between recharges. The biggest reason wireless fences don't work is owners don't take the time to properly train the dog on how to respond to the beeps. Our Brittany won't cross the fence anywhere except the secret gate and then only when he is at heal with one of us. I've seen him running flat out chasing a rabbit come to a dead stop when he reaches the boundary rather than cross it, even when he doesn't have the collar on.

[Larry Browning]

Have you considered getting a smaller dog? Things instantly become much less complicated.

[David C. Roseman]

We've had great luck with a Petsafe radio fence.
[snip]
We learned by accident that the car isn't a problem crossing so we just leave the collar on full time much to the dismay of the trainer we took Dog 2 to. Just met with someone from a dog rescue with lots of experience and she does the same.

Crossing the pet-containment wire in a car is pretty safe, but I'd be reluctant to leave the collar on away from the property. It can be triggered by any other system (or for that matter, any device) that emits the same radio frequency, if close enough. Same concern even with leaving an e-collar on routinely inside the house. We had a situation a few years ago where we noticed that one of our dogs stopped going into a room with an armoire holding audio and video equipment. We discovered that a stray signal had been triggering a shock.

David

[Matt Meiser]

In 11 years we haven't had a problem.

[David Weaver]

Every dog I ever was around when I was a kid (when it was more common to have dogs outside and leave them there) was on a chain, and I don't remember ever hearing of anyone wearing a chain out.

I don't have a dog now, but the invisible fence is common in our neighborhood (someone in the neighborhood is a rep) and I've never been chased by a dog. The only loose dog I ever saw was a dog that got loose from a chain link fence.

Still, though, I'd rather have a chain lead than a cable lead for anything that was going to take wear, but maybe I'm behind the times. It was common when I was a kid for people to tie their dogs out or have two dogs where one was intentionally not socialized and left outside as a property dog on a lead, or with livestock as a livestock dog. Over the years, I've seen fewer dogs with pastured animals and more donkeys.