New Suxs Thread

[Siead]

Try an electric collar and an electric "fence." There are two kinds, one that uses a loud noise or a mild shock if the dog comes too close to a wire perimeter you lay down, the other that does the same if the dog gets too far from the central point that you lay down. Much cheaper than rebuilding a fence, and you can put both dogs in collars in case the puppy decides to start wandering.

alot of people aren't comfy with shock collars, but it might be a great solution while saving up to fix the fence as well. especially if the dogs are diggers.

[DollyKim]

We bury their poops in any holes they dig around the fence. If the dog is just pushing through holes in the fence what about putting up chicken wire or something related on the inside? It's a stop gap but it might buy you some time to save up.

The one thing that kept our escape lab from going through one part of the fence was a flowering vine. A previous house had a front fence that was more passion flower than fence by the time we left.

[Kirahfaye]

I don't know how we are going to afford it, but somehow we have to get our fence rebuilt. After spending probably $400 over the past year putting band-aids on it to keep our dog from getting out he managed to still find a way out through a place we didn't think was a problem. He's safe at home again, but not before he had me running through half the neighborhood and screaming after him when he went chasing a panel truck down the through street toward the entrance to the S/D. Thankfully something made him run straight to me before he got the the busier road. And, thankfully our puppy still won't leave the back yard, because she could have followed after him....

I'm still freaked out though.

Try an electric collar and an electric "fence." There are two kinds, one that uses a loud noise or a mild shock if the dog comes too close to a wire perimeter you lay down, the other that does the same if the dog gets too far from the central point that you lay down. Much cheaper than rebuilding a fence, and you can put both dogs in collars in case the puppy decides to start wandering.

We've considered it, but as we have a mini-Aussie, my big concern is that Tucker simply will push on past the discomfort until he's beyond it's effect. He's smart and stubborn.....

Jeff came home from work early yesterday and we spent the afternoon shoring up the bottom of the fence (we have chicken wire attached to the bottom and running about a foot along the ground) and added stronger gauge pig wire to the bottom of the fence Tucker got though that we had erroneously thought was safe. Then this morning I saw Maddie (all 15 lbs of her) pouncing on the ground at the fence line and upon investigation, I found a hole in the chicken wire about the size of the bottom of a coffee mug punched through it..... :smacks forehead:

Maybe we should try the electric collar system. It couldn't be any more expensive than the money we've been throwing at the fence in band-aid fixes. :sigh:

[famedglory]

Electric fences run between $100-$200 and you can pick one up at Home Depot or Lowes. For Aussies I would recommend one that administers a continous low shock once she's past a certain point. I've known a few Aussies with Invisifence and they just push past the barrier to get to something and then get stuck on the other side.

[Kirahfaye]

Electric fences run between $100-$200 and you can pick one up at Home Depot or Lowes. For Aussies I would recommend one that administers a continous low shock once she's past a certain point. I've known a few Aussies with Invisifence and they just push past the barrier to get to something and then get stuck on the other side.

Yeah ... we discussed it during dinner tonight, so I guess I'll do some research on the invisible fence thing. Not that we'd get rid of our fence, of course.

[Vetinari]

Condensation - terrible condensation; to the extent that my bedroom wall (coincidentally the smallest and coldest room in this cold cold house - ancient prewar single layer of bricks-shell means insulation is not realistically achievable in the outer walls - and my room is mostly outer wall) was dripping water again this morning. ...Terrified for my books (hints of what might be mould on the wall...) and really hope it's an easy fix, and not something worse like the building needing repointing... But I think it's condensation - double glazing, every window in the house has it for the 1st winter ever - I think previously the draftiness provided some much needed ventilation... Fix one thing and another thing crops up...

[Trethowan]

@ Kirah, I'm grateful for a slightly dumb dog. She sees the fence and her little doggy brain thinks, "barrier, can't get through.... Squirrel!"

I did dog-sit a troublesome German Shepherd for about three years. Keeping him in the fence was nearly impossible. Originally I'd tried adding thicker gauge wire along the tops and bottom of the fence, he chewed through it. We buried huge rocks under the fence, he dug past them. He pulled out the spikes we dug into the ground. We put up electric shock lines similar to horse fencing (to keep them from grazing over tops of fences). That actually worked for a long while, but he eventually chewed through the lines feeding the power to the thing. Who chews through buried electric wires? Seriously. I don't know how the dog didn't die. The funny thing, we didn't try the shock collar because he was so big, and ran so fast, we were afraid he'd do the "beyond the barrier" thing described above. Maybe it would have worked after all...

On other news...

@ Vetinari: Weeping walls sounds really creepy. I hope the books don't get ruined.

[Qrinta]

Check engine light on my car came on a week ago. Finally had time to get it checked out. Seems I need a new catalytic converter. Not a big deal I guess but I don't like my car having problems. xD

[MitisFeles]

My home pc's hard disk suddently broke last saturday... I probably can fix all without calling a Technic and just buying a new hard disk, but I'm annoyed because of the lost datas, even if there wasn't nothing that was a matter of life or death and if probably I can recover a great part of them, and more for the loss of time...I already wasted an entire afternoon+evening to get a Windows installation cd just to discover that the hard disk was broken and I cannot just format it.

[DollyKim]

I've been there twice, can you use an external hard drive reader to access the information? We had to do that once and it worked.