Invisible Fence Company...is a POS

[HuskerOmaha]

So, I have this lot that backs to a walking trail.

I own a German Shepherd, and people are scared of him.

I needed a fence.

I didn't want to have said fence blocking the wonderful view of the walking trail area making my yard seem WAY bigger than it is.

I thought, hey an invisible fence is 1/3 the price of a real fence.


Well, randomly, as I shut the door 3 weeks ago, it started alarming.
Now my dog thinks it is ok to go out on the walking trail and visit runners, bikers, and little ****zus whose owners think the world is ending because a 90 lb dog wants to say hello (and maybe mix it up a little bit).

So, I thought I had better check with Invisible Fence on the situation.

The two little red lights erroring were for "saturation" and "batt". Whatever that means. Not the fence (that was green).

I dial my local, helpful, fence people.

After some nice, hello-speak....
(IF identifies Invisible Fence, G identifies Greg)

IF: "Were you digging in your yard?"
G: "No, it was -10 degrees out and we had a foot of snow"
IF: "Were there animals digging in your yard?"
G: "I don't think so. If an aerator didn't hit it, how would rabbits?"
IF: "Did the snowplows maybe cut the line?"
G: "The line in my driveway seam 8 feet up the driveway? No"
IF: "Did you hit it with the snowblower?"
G: "My snowblower is broken, and I shovel. And it is buried 6 inches down a cement seam. And no, it started alarming WHEN I SHUT THE GARAGE DOOR (as discussed earlier)."
IF: "We can get you a service call in the AM-It is $89.95 for the first 1/2 hour"
G: "What if the unit itself is broken or malfunctioning and not the wire in the ground?"
IF: "It is always the wire, the garage unit never malfunctions".


After some more discussion on possibilities, I decided not to get the service call for now. 90 bucks to run essentially a voltage test on the line? 90 bucks per 1/2 HOUR?

WTF?


Sorry, just had to vent somewhere before getting asked by the wife when she gets home if the fence is fixed.:peeping::doh! 1:

[Kevin_Wadsworth]

Sorry to hear that, Husker. Did you end up fixing it yourself?

I have a fairly large property (1.4 acres), so even invisible fence was pretty expensive. And as you have found, the electronics are pretty low-end.

Most of invisible fence isn't the shocking of hte dogs anyway, it's the training with the flags. so instead of spending the $$ on the fence, I invested in good quality remote training collars (~$200 if I recall. Dogtra for one dog, Tritronics for the other.) And then I spent $10 at Lowes for a pack of orange contrustion flags.

One dog took literally 5 minutes to be trained to stay in the yard, while the other dog took about a week.

[HuskerOmaha]

Sorry to hear that, Husker. Did you end up fixing it yourself?

I have a fairly large property (1.4 acres), so even invisible fence was pretty expensive. And as you have found, the electronics are pretty low-end.

Most of invisible fence isn't the shocking of hte dogs anyway, it's the training with the flags. so instead of spending the $$ on the fence, I invested in good quality remote training collars (~$200 if I recall. Dogtra for one dog, Tritronics for the other.) And then I spent $10 at Lowes for a pack of orange contrustion flags.

One dog took literally 5 minutes to be trained to stay in the yard, while the other dog took about a week.

It is suppose to be nice this week, so I'm going to go out and see if it really is the fence by closing the loop utilizing speaker wire to act as the "fence". (Just complete the circuit, you dig?)

If the fence is busted, I suppose I'll sack up and pay them to come out to figure out where it apparently is broken.

If it isn't the fence and is in fact the unit, I'll take it off the garage ceiling and drive it to the company hq myself. :applause:

I do agree it is more the dog being trained...we were doing a patio/sidewalk project the same time the fence got installed and he was fairly confused by all the change. And I have personally haven't been as good with finishing the training either.

[edward]

$90.00 for 30 min.
man i am in the wrong profession.
do hope you get it fixed without having to shell out that type of cash.

[tooskinny]

I trained two dogs with invisible fence with no problem. One dog at three different houses. The flags are the key..... Walk the dog around with a leash for a couple days, let them wonder around like usual. Once they get close to the flag and continue until they get the first initial shock, pull them back in the yard and call the flags mean or bad. Before you know it you can have them walking around the yard and removing every other flag after a couple weeks until they are gone. My dogs would make a full sprint to bark at dogs walking by and stop right before the invisible line. Never once did they cross the line. One more thing if you do take them out of the yard use the same place each time. I had to coax mine it was ok the leave, even had to carry one the first couple times. If your fence is working properly you shouldn't have any problems.

Good luck

[HuskerOmaha]

Thanks for the info guys. It is starting to get nice here in Omaha, so once I can figure out why the fence suddenly stopped working, it is back to retraining.

I'm more mad they charge that much for a service call....on something I didn't break.