That Time We Talked About Electric Dog Fences

This is episode number 94 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're glad that you could be with us this evening or daytime, morning, whenever you're tuning into The Homeowner Show. We're just glad that you could be with us. Um, Here comes the the ugly bump again, Kev. Nope, I'm gonna get it. I'm gonna get it.

No, you're gonna leave it in.

I got it. Oh my God!

There it is. That's so funny.

You you even reminded me before the show, and I still left it in. Yeah, yeah.

I definitely was like, hey Craig, remember that bumpity bump part at the end? You need to go on and kind of get cut out.

So once again, you get a little extra funk in your homeowner show.

We we did that just for the audience.

That's right. That's just just for the the true believers out there. Good Lord, we're gonna get our stuff together one of these days.

What is this, episode 94?

94. We'll have it together by 100. For sure.

For no doubt. There's no way that number 100 could be worse than this one.

Yeah, it'll be absolutely flawless. We got 6, you know, 5 to go, and then, and then we'll be perfect.

Yes.

So we'll, we'll not need to make any more episodes after that. We've covered everything. We'll have gotten the bump music right.

So if we actually hit 100, we will have arrived. If we don't get canceled. Or bought out. Oh yeah, well, I would, I would be fine with being bought out. If you want to buy us out, give us a call. Yeah, info@homemotorshow.com. We can make that happen.

Kevin will give you his personal cell.

Yeah, I absolutely will. Yes, I absolutely will, because I can buy a new one. It's— we're pretty cheap too.

Well, you are.

That's true. How you doing, man?

You can't set me up like that.

I'm going to. Okay.

And at least until episode 100.

Well, I just, I just know that I'm gonna get, you know, fired on, so sure, I'll take it.

Just might as well let it, let it be of your own accord.

Yeah, I'm fine with that.

All right.

Yeah, that's actually one of my favorite jokes. Horrible jokes.

Okay.

Um, you know what car Jesus drove, right?

No.

He drove a Honda.

Why is that?

Because all of him and his disciples were in one accord. That's all you got? That's the best laugh you got?

Yeah, that's all it deserves.

Well, I told you it's horrible, but it's, it's kind of funny.

Oh man. So, so this, this is actually going to be one of the last, uh, Kevin E. Craig episodes for a while. We got, we got some cool folks coming in. We got some cool episodes coming up, some, some neat interviews, uh, since we're finally able to, uh, you know, take down the COVID tape from the studio door.

Yes.

And bring people back in.

Yeah.

But until then, we have a really good episode for you guys tonight. We're going to be talking about invisible fences.

Yeah, I mean, this is, this is one of those episodes that we've been talking about doing for a little while simply because I installed one during COVID Right. Something that my wife and I have been talking about since we bought the house doing, but it's, it's an investment.

Mm-hmm.

Both In money and time.

Yes.

And so, uh, but you, you have one as well.

Yeah, we installed one about 5 years ago. Okay. Um, so I, I think, I think this, this particular topic, I mean, at least the way that we've approached it really embodies like the spirit of, of the Homeowner Show because you, you DIY'd it.

Yes.

And then, and then I went out and hired a professional, um, for obvious reasons. I mean, obvious to you and me, and we'll get into that in a minute, but yeah. Yeah. You would not have DIY'd my system.

There is no chance that I would have ever DIY'd your house. That's right.

So, and I would probably, I would probably tackle a DIY at your place.

Yeah. I mean, there's, I mean, there's pros and cons to doing it yourself. Right. Um, but yeah, we'll, we'll get into some of that as we get into it a little bit. But—

Well, so, so just right off the bat, what was, what was the brand of the one that you ended up putting in? Yeah.

So I went with, uh, Extreme Dog Fence.

Okay.

And, and there's, there's so many out there. I mean, there's really a plethora of options.

This is a buried wire system?

Yes.

Correct.

That was actually a dilemma for us because I honestly just didn't want to do the work of putting in a buried system. PetSafe makes a system that's wireless. Basically, what it does is you've got a hub in your home, or wherever you choose to put it, but it's a hub that emits a signal, but it's a diameter.

Right.

So it's a circle, and they haven't figured out— I mean, in today's world, you would think they would figure out a way to projection map some things, give you some options. I mean, we've talked about this recently, that my own robot vacuum projection maps my house. So you would think they would have some options, but they don't have it. It was going to be this diameter, and I'm like, man, like, that, that circle would wind up being in my neighbor's yard, right? And so I don't, I don't need my dog wandering. Yeah. And we got that golf course behind us and everything. So it just, at the end of the day, I, I couldn't pull the trigger. And it's not an inexpensive system.

Yeah, but it's a heck of a lot easier to, to install.

Oh yeah, because all you got to do is plug it in. Yeah, you plug it in, and, and I think you can, I think you can narrow the radius.

Yeah.

And, and widen it. But, but as far as any more than that, I mean, you— that's about all that it will do.

So it's great if your property's a circle.

Yeah, like so many are.

Yeah, so many circle properties.

So we— so what I did is I, I literally just went and did a Google search of best underground fences for dogs, right? And I, I, you know, pulled up one of those top 5 or, or whatever, and, and I just really kind of started reading, comparing, and, and reading reviews and trying to figure out, okay, based on what we're trying to do, what does this look like?

Mm-hmm.

And so I, I went with Extreme Dog Fence for mine. Um, and I, I don't know how far you really want me to get into it before we kind of go back to yours as well.

Do you want to No, you're good, keep going.

Okay, so I, I had to figure some things out. One of the things I had to figure out was how are we gonna do this? Because one of, one of the things I realized is that in order to put an underground wire fence in, it has to be a continuous loop, all right, in your home. So for example, you can go into your backyard and literally just put a circle of wire down And you're good. It's a loop, but your dog couldn't get in the loop, right?

Yeah.

Because if he's got the collar on, you can't cross that, right? Um, so you've got to find a way to, to either go all the way around your house, which a lot of people will do, or you can double the, the wire in the back so you can kind of You can, you can make basically a horseshoe shape in your backyard, for example. But that in and of itself creates a problem because one of the things you have to understand about these underwire or underground wire fences is that if the wire is too close to itself, it cancels the signal.

Okay.

So they have to be a minimum of 4 feet. The wire has to be a minimum of 4 feet away from itself so that it doesn't cancel its own signal. So There's a couple of things you have to keep in mind. Number one, you can't square any, any places off. You can't have any 90-degree, uh, turn angles in your wire, because if you do, then what winds up happening is in that corner, the signal goes away because it's too close to itself.

Okay, because of the angle.

Because of the angle. So you have to round all the corners. So what you would basically do is you could make a horseshoe, but then you got to make another horseshoe inside or outside of that one, uh, with the wire. So you're using the same amount of wire twice, and you, and you're creating a 4-foot barrier that some yards just don't have the capacity for.

Sure.

You know, you're, you're severely limiting the size of your backyard at that point. So, uh, one of the, the options that I saw was that you can take it like up a gutter on your house. You can bring it up to your house, go up the gutter and around, you know, up underneath the gutter. Because the way these things work is they emit a signal that you determine with the, with the wire. The higher the signal, the, the more signal it sends out on either side of that wire. And that's, that's a radius as well. So it's on either side of the wire. It's also up and down.

Okay.

below ground and above ground. So let's say you've got a 5-foot diameter on that thing. If you go up over your house, theoretically your dog could walk out the door and not be shocked, right? So I called in, I was talking to, to, um, one of their professionals, one of their customer service professionals, and she said, I would highly discourage you from doing that. And I said, well, it actually says that we can do this on your website. And she said, well, yes, technically you can do it, but I've found so many people have had a problem with the signal and with their dogs having issues with it. I just don't advise it because if you install it and you hate it, you're going to call us and be

frustrated. So I'm going to tell you, don't do it. So My issue was I didn't want my dog running all the way around my house.

Right.

I, I just— I could make a big loop all the way around my house, but then she's in the front yard, she's in the backyard. If I go out looking for her, where is she? Um, so I found out there's another option, and it's what they call the hourglass option.

Okay.

So basically, you, you make a loop in your backyard and tuck it up close to your house And then in the front yard, you go around the front yard as well. So it, it kind of creates this hourglass look.

Okay.

If you were to look at it from above, and then you're not canceling any signal out, those sorts of things. The only thing you have to be aware of is if you put it too close to your house, there could be a signal emitted inside your house, right? And so if you leave the collar on all the time, could your dog get shocked inside? So we went with the hourglass option, and based on where we put it and the way we did it, there's no place inside of my house that emits a signal. It would inside my garage, but my dog doesn't go inside my garage. So the second thing we had to really figure

out was how we were gonna install it and all of those sorts of things. And that in and of itself is a process because Um, what they tell you to do and what you actually decide you want to do are probably going to be different things. Because what they tell you to do is to roll the entire length of wire out, test it, and then bury it.

Mm-hmm.

And I was like, I'm not doing that. Because, I mean, the, the one that I bought was the pro-grade system. It's one lower than their max grade. And they've got— the thing that really determines the differences is the gauge of wire. The higher gauge wire you have— or wire gauges are weird, right?

Right, sure.

So the lower the number, the bigger the wire. So the larger wire that you use, the more reliable it is and the more resistant it is to problems. So I went with the pro-grade system. It uses 14-gauge wire. And, um, you get 500 feet of that. Well, that was going to cover my— in fact, I was, I was within 30 feet of using all of it.

Okay.

So anyway, so I bought all of it, installed all of it, and it worked great. Um, one of the things you also have to figure out is where you're going to put the transmitter. The, the transmitter is the, uh, basically the device that you plug into the wall that turns it on.

Okay.

And there's lots of different ways to do that, but the pro-grade system that I bought comes with twisted wire. And like I said earlier, the signal can cancel itself out if it's too close to each other. So if you take wire and you twist it, then no signal is going to be emitted through that wire.

So that's like your lead wire that you send out?

Yeah, exactly. So that I put the transmitter in my garage, I put the twisted wire out, you know, I ran it outside of my garage and then plugged it in or spliced it into the wire outside. It works great, absolutely works great. Um, the install was not fun, to say the least. The install was not fun. And so, so—

Well, just let everybody know, you were pretty optimistic at the beginning of this because you had a piece of equipment that you were planning on using.

Yes.

To do this.

Yeah, absolutely. So again, I did a lot of research on this before I bought it, as I do. And on their website, it gives you all the information about how to install it. And I did some, some videos on YouTube trying to watch people do it. And they say you should use a cable, a cable trencher to install this. So if you're near a tool rental, and Home Depot tends to have these at their tool rentals, you can buy this cable installer. And so one of the things you have to know before you do anything is you absolutely have to call 811. Okay, yeah, you know what 811 is, right?

That's the, the line bury service. Is that the same number in every state?

I, I'm pretty sure it is.

In Texas it's 811.

Well, that's what you would think. Yeah, it is 811, but when you call them You're— I— it didn't go to where I needed it to.

Oh, really?

I had to actually go online and find a different number and then call a different number. It was an 800 number, but I had to call it. The 811 did not go where I wanted it to.

Really?

Yeah, I was shocked. I don't know what happened.

Um, where did it go?

I— it, it just— it hung up on me. Every time I called them, it was like this number is not in service. I was like, well, what service do you want me to call? Yeah, because you're gonna like I'm gonna get big trouble if I don't. Like if I cut something, I didn't have it you know marked, then then I'm responsible for this, and I'm probably going to be responsible for it anyway. But there's a there's a different level of responsibility if you don't get it marked first.

Like I'm just curious how many times did you try calling these guys and it hung up on you every time? Or I mean like what what?

Yeah, it was all in an afternoon. I mean, I probably called 2 or 3 times and I was like, I'm gonna get online and see if I can just do this online.

This same thing happened every time you called it?

Every time.

We need to record this so that we can, uh, we can, we can call these guys out and—

Yeah, I'm fine with that.

Get your stuff together, 811.

Yeah, because—

Pay your mobile bill.

Well, because this is a big deal.

Yeah.

So, so basically, if you don't know, Before you dig, you've seen this commercial somewhere, before you dig, you call 811.

Right.

And for free, they will come out and mark all of the lines in your house. So for example, my electric line, my gas line, my internet line, my cable line, all of those things are buried. And so they have to come out, they spray paint the line, they put flags down.

Right.

So one of the things that I found out though, and this was just kind of learning, is most electric and gas lines are buried 24 inches down, which is significant.

Sure.

Um, my internet was buried—

it's like a—

it's about a foot. It's a— it's between 6 and 12. Yeah, 12 inches. Uh, I checked mine. I called them specifically. They said, uh, typical is 12 inches. Uh, for us. So you kind of have to know that because the underground fence that you're putting in, they only recommend 3.5 inches, right, is all you have to put it down. So I was fairly confident that even though I had everything marked, that I was not going to hit anything, and I didn't. I never had any problems.

Spoiler alert.

Yeah, yeah, thank goodness. Uh, but I had to figure out how I was going to install this. I mean, 500 feet.

Yeah.

That's not a small amount.

No.

And so they say, hey, go rent this, this cable trencher. So I did. I got up early one morning. It was a Saturday, so I wanted to go ahead and get there early. It was during COVID and so, you know, there's all these crazy social distancing rules and lines and wait 6 feet from the person in front of you. Yeah, that kind of stuff. And I get there and I said, hey, I want to rent the cable installer, cable trencher. And he, and he looked at me and he said, why? And I said, because I'm gonna use it. He said, what are you going to use it for? I said, I'm gonna install an electric dog fence. He said, you don't want to do that. This guy at Home

Depot.

Yeah.

And trying to rent things. And I said, Why not? And he said, well, I'll just be honest with you, 9 out of 10 people that rent this thing bring it back more frustrated than whenever they got here. And I said, I'm not frustrated at all right now. Like, how frustrated are these people when they show up the first time? I don't understand. And, uh, he said, I don't know if ours is just old or what, but it doesn't work.

I said, it doesn't work?

What do you mean it doesn't work? He said, it just— do you have any roots in your house? I said, you mean around my house? He said, yeah, do you have roots around your house? I said, sure, we got trees. He said, well, if you have any roots, you're gonna have problems. This thing is— it's just frustrating. You're gonna be frustrated. He talked me out of— out of my— he's like, no, you can— we have a landscape trencher if you want that. It'll— it'll dig you, uh, I think he said like a 3 or 4 inch wide trench. I don't need a 3 or 4-inch wide trench. I need just— I mean, these cable installers, they're amazing.

Yeah.

If they work right. Because what you do is you, you take your spool of wire and you put it on a little stem, and you run that wire down a loophole at the, like, near the ground, stake it into the ground, and, um, run that through the little eye hole in the system, and you pull that thing backwards, turn it on, Start it, pull it backwards, and it will dig the trench, bury the line, and backfill the trench all in one motion.

Yeah.

So he's telling me, he's like, this thing, you're not going to be happy with it. And I said, well, okay, I'll just go home and break my back. Exactly. And that's, and that's literally what I did.

Yeah.

Uh, I went home and I had a 6-inch spade, not, not like a, not like a shovel, like just a flat spade. And I went in, you know, went out there, stepped on the spade, dug it, you know, dug it in the ground, and I wiggled it back and forth to create a little bit of trench. And I went to the next place, and my wife was going along behind me on her hands and knees burying the cable with her fingers and like the end of a spoon, like jabbing it down into the, into the ground. And it was hard.

Yeah.

I mean, it, it was, it was a lot of work. It was warm outside, um, and it took a really, really long time. And there were some roots that I had to like get around, and so I literally was out there with my chainsaw a couple of times, like chainsawing a root because I didn't know how else I was going to get past it, you know?

Yeah.

And so we, we installed the whole thing. We did it in a day, but it took all day.

Yeah.

To do. Now here's what's frustrating. Uh, yesterday I might— we have some neighbors that moved in a couple of months ago across the street. They were doing all this landscaping, bringing in big rocks and sod and It was a huge— I mean, they probably spent $10,000 and they did all the work themselves.

Jeez, that's a bunch of material.

That's a bunch of material. And I look out there yesterday and the dude has a cable trencher and he's got wire on the ground. So I just walk over there, I'm like, hey man, like, tell me about this cable. Where'd you, where'd you rent this from? Because They are the— this Home Depot is the only place in a 30-mile radius that I could find that rented that tool. They had it.

Yeah.

And he said, I got it from the Home Depot over there. And I was like, that— I said, that guy tried to talk me out of it. Oh, he said, he almost— he tried to talk me out of it too, but I got it anyway. And I said, well, okay, well, how's it working? He said, it's awesome. I did this whole thing in 30 minutes. I said, what the— what?

What?

30 minutes? And he was like, yeah. I mean, he said, now it, it'll gum up a little, a little bit here and there because some of our sod is— I mean, our, our ground is wet. But he said, no, I'm not using it to bury the cable. I'm just using it to dig the trench. And I was like, I would have loved that.

Yeah.

You know, that's the hardest part. I mean, I can get down on my hands and knees if I have to, and I can put wire in the ground. Yeah, exactly. Um, so just so you know, go rent the tool and do not let the guy at Home Depot try to con you out He just doesn't want another surly redheaded dude coming in and yelling at him. I don't know what he— I don't know what he wants. And what I, I mean, if I was his manager, I'd be like, hey, you're out. Just sell the tool.

Just rent the tool.

And he told me, he was like, I'll rent it to you. I'm just telling you that you're probably gonna bring it back and not very happy.

Yeah.

And I was like, I— and at the time, honestly, I felt like, oh, this is a good decision. You know, I don't want to spend the $65, $70 to rent it and then get frustrated with it and waste my day. I saved some money. At the end of the day, got done. I felt accomplished, you know.

Well, I mean, let's, let's, let's run those numbers real quick. What would it have cost you to, uh, to rent that tool?

It was about $65 for the whole day, for a half day.

So $130 for the whole day. If you had any trouble, you probably would have needed it for the whole day. So let's assume $130.

The system cost you The system was right about $350.

Okay, so in the big— like, in the cost of the system, that was a pretty— that was a pretty big expense, but it cost you the whole day, like you and your wife's whole day.

Oh yeah, and like, I mean, I was sore for a few days. Yeah, I mean, it was—

it's not easy work for sure.

It's not. I mean, especially if you're just not used to that type of work. I mean, if If you're a landscaper, okay. Most of us aren't landscapers. Sure. If we're a construction worker, maybe. Most of us aren't. So yeah, I mean, it, it, it was— to me, it would have been worth the money. In fact, I said that to, to my wife yesterday. I was like, can you believe— look at them, they got the tool over there. Said he did it in 30 minutes, like all the way around his house.

Yeah.

And she was like, Well, but we got it done. I'm like, that is not what I need you to say right now.

I need you to be totally angry with me.

Exactly. What I need you to say is, honey, you're an idiot. You should have just printed it anyway. And then I would have felt better about my frustration right now. But at the end of the day, I said, yeah, but would it have been worth $65? Because if he did it in 30 minutes, I could have done this entire place in an hour and I could have had it back in 4 hours. Yeah, but I don't know.

Well, this, this is the exact same sentiment that people have every time they try and do their plumbing themselves instead of calling Paul the plumber.

Should have just called Paul.

I should have just called Paul. So every single time, man, because if there's a busted pipe, there's a leaky pipe, if there's a faucet that needs to go in, a new toilet's going in, whatever it is— hot water heater, that's a big one.

Oh, I've had a hot water heater go out and it is a problem. Yeah, it's an immediate problem.

We've actually had Paul put a, put a hot water heater in for us, uh, and did a tremendous job. Yeah, so, and that's That's one of the ones, if you're going to have— you need to get that one right. That one causes more damage to more homes, especially if it's the one in the attic.

That's what I don't understand. Why put it in the attic? But so many houses do. I know it's a space saver, and you don't want to have a closet or whatever, but come on, people!

Just asking to have your house flooded.

Just put it in the garage.

Here's what I tell people. If you're going to have a hot water heater in the attic, at least get one of the tankless.

Oh, and I would tell most people get a tankless anyway, right? That's, that's my personal opinion. There are plenty of people out there that disagree with me.

Yeah, it's my opinion too, which means that it's right. Which my other opinion is that you need to call Paul. Absolutely. Got any plumbing needs, you can give him a call at 832-521-3252. Trust the experts here at the Homeowner's Shade when we say that you need a good plumber, and that plumber is Paul.

No doubt. No doubt. Give him a call.

Yep. So, Kev, like, what, what have been the, the pluses and the minuses of this system so far? Because I mean, you say it costs like $300.

Yeah, I think it's about $350 plus some tax.

So, and I'll let everybody know what I spent on mine. They're probably going to be some sticker shock, but yeah. Um, uh, so it's $300 plus, you know, however much time you spent installing it. So what would have been your, like, 2, 2 big pluses right off the top of your head?

Okay, so first of all, let me tell you kind of what that comes with.

Okay, sure, sure.

So for, for me to get that system for $350 plus tax, right? Um, that comes with quite a bit of stuff. It comes with the transmitter, it comes with a waterproof collar.

Okay.

And it comes with 2 different probe sizes. So if you've got, you know, bigger dog or a thicker hair, hairy dog, um, it comes with 500 foot of wire. It comes with 50 foot of the twisted wire.

Okay.

Which, you, you know, you can actually use that like if you've got a flower bed or something and you want to— you don't want a dog in a flower bed or a pool.

You could send another lead line off the line.

Exactly.

Circle that. Okay.

So you can circle that and then, you know, it works. So, um, comes with, uh, 2 professional splice kits. And, and what that— those are waterproof. So when you're splicing stuff together, you want those to be waterproof because those are going to be buried in the ground.

So it comes They're like a little plastic enclosure-looking deal.

Yeah.

I've used one of those before.

You make your splice and then you put them down in this enclosure. It's got some—

It's like a gel in there.

Yeah, it's like a gel. Then you close it up and it's safe. It comes with the battery for the collar, which those aren't cheap.

Is it a specific kind of battery? You're not putting AAs in there?

No. You can probably get this battery at Batteries Plus, most likely. But it's a specific type of battery. So it comes with the battery. It also—

Is it specific to the brand or is it just a specific battery?

No, it's a specific battery.

Okay.

It's probably something you can get at a battery store.

I gotcha.

Um, and then it comes with, uh, 10 landscape staples. So if you're putting it in certain places, you need some like long stakes basically. It comes with those and then it comes with, uh, 50 flags.

Okay.

So what those are for—

those are training flags, right?

Exactly.

Okay.

You mark it so your dog kind of knows where it is and so you know where it is.

Yeah.

And then it also comes with a surge protector. So what is a misnomer is they don't tell you this on their website, that surge protector does not come until you register it for warranty. Oh, then they send you the surge protector.

Interesting.

This made a difference in how I wired because You basically have to wire to the surge protector. And so, so you plug the transmitter in and it immediately goes into the surge protector and then out from that and then to the transmitter.

So, so you can't plug it in until you get the surge protector?

No, you can. You're just not gonna get surge protection until you—

Okay.

Plug that in. So for me, I installed it before the surge protector ever came in, and I did not realize exactly how that was gonna have to happen. And so I had to make another splice.

Oh.

it's not the end of the world, um, but I didn't really want to do that. If I would have realized it, I would have wired it a little differently, right? But just something to keep in mind, um, if you need that. And if you, if you buy this system, the surge protector doesn't come with it until you register it.

Gotcha.

Once you register it, they send it out to you. But it's a nice little perk to have that surge protector because if something happens and your dog's outside and, and that thing gets surged, Your dog's gonna get surged, right? And so you don't want that to happen. So, um, all of that comes with it, which is a pretty good deal for, for $350-ish. That's not bad. Um, so here, here's the deal. First off, the number one thing you, you asked me, 2 things, 2 positives.

Yeah.

The number one thing is when we moved into this house, we priced materials to put a fence in our yard for our dog. Materials only would have cost us $5,000.

And well, and I think that's probably good for people— not a wooden fence.

No, that, that is a— I mean, again, we live on a golf course, and so that, that's a wrought iron or, or aluminum, black aluminum fence. Um, so obviously it's gonna cost less money for a wood fence, But materials for a wood fence would be half that, probably. You're still probably talking a couple thousand bucks for the materials for that. So, we're paying a fraction of the cost in materials to do essentially the same thing, which is keep my dog out of other people's business and make sure that I know that my dog is safe outside.

Right.

But it also didn't block our view and make us feel confined, right, by a fence. So the, the biggest thing was just not having to install a really expensive physical fence.

Yeah.

Was huge for us. So that, that's the big one. Um, and, and probably the second one was that I got to map out where my dog goes. And so, different than like that wireless one that we talked about earlier, I didn't have any control over the radius. You know, it's a circle, and I didn't have any control over this. This I could put exactly where I wanted, making sure that my dog goes where I want him to go, doesn't want to go where I don't want him to go.

Mm-hmm.

So if I had a pool, which I don't, I, I could put a fence around that thing without putting a physical fence, and my dog would not be able to get in it. So for me, it just creates a lot of a lot of opportunity to customize where your dog can go without that physical fence. Yeah, there for sure.

Hmm.

But I'll tell you, I had a major screw-up. Major screw-up. And I, I think I told you about what it was, uh, and it wasn't not renting the cable trencher. The major screw-up was this thing is not the easiest to program.

Okay.

And, and I don't know if they're all this way.

Oh, I do remember you telling me about this now.

Yeah, I don't know if they're all this way, and I'm guessing they probably are not, but, um, it's a very rudimentary, uh, transmitter. And in fact, whenever I called, I, I and I was doing warranty, I told them what I did and they were like, we've told them that they need to make that more user-friendly.

Yeah. And they won't do it.

So it's a problem they recognize, but they haven't fixed it. And so there's a 2-step process. One is you set the transmission amount, So there's a certain amount of surge that your dog will get based on the level that you tell it to give it. So training your dog, this specific one gives you the option of starting at a level 0, which is just a tone, right? It's a beep. So if your dog gets near the fence, it beeps. So there's no surge at all at that point. So they're not getting any transmission through their collar other than a beep, right, for training purposes. And then it's got a level 7. And really what's interesting

about this one is level 6 and level 7 are progressive. So the closer they get to the fence on level 6 and 7, the more shock they get.

Hmm.

Um, and so there's another parameter, which is the, uh, the radius of that transmission. So you can set this one anywhere from 1 foot to 32 feet, I believe. So I mean, think about that, that's 10 yards.

Yeah.

And, and that's on either side of that wire. Well, you're gonna have to have a pretty big dog to go through 20 yards worth of, of, uh, shock. Shock.

Yeah.

So So I looked at it and it looked as if I had it on set on a 5-foot on either side, which is what I want, and that I had it on a level 0 for beep. And so on the, on the screen it showed a 0 and a 5, which is 0 for the beep, 5 for the distance that that surge, that electrical surge would go.

Mm-hmm.

So there's a whole nother process that you have to do, which is you have to hold the collar up to it and basically pair it to that transmitter. I didn't understand that. I also didn't understand that that 05 that I was seeing was actually the level.

Mm-hmm.

Like the 0 to 7, it was actually the level and not the distance. So here's what I did. I put the collar on my dog. I'm like, we'll go out there, we're gonna train. That's like a day after, the next day. So I know I've got the flag set out. I'm gonna take her out there and just kind of hear the beep. And it tells you, it explains really, really well how to train your dog.

Right.

So you go out there, you hear the beep, and you run to the middle of your yard and just praise them like crazy. And then you take them back out, hear the beep, you run back to the middle of your yard. So I take her out toward the flag and she about comes out of her fur. And I heard no beep, although I know there was a beep, uh, because it will beep at you no matter what, even if you've got electrical going through it. She jumped about 5 feet in the air, and my dog weighs 20 pounds. Okay, so she's not a big dog. Jumps about 5 feet in the air yelps like crazy and will— and, and like was yanking me

back to the front door. And I was like, you stupid dog, it's just a beep. Like, what is going on? So I take her back because I'm like, this is— what's going on? Same thing. And I realize that it was at a level 5, not a level 0, just a beep.

Yeah.

So I shocked her with a level 5. which would probably send you and me through a window.

Yeah.

And she didn't come out of her kennel for a day. She peed in her kennel for the first time in her life. Never in her life had she peed in her kennel. She would not go outside.

Yeah.

And she was scared to death. And I— we, we had to make the decision that we would not take her Like, we took the collar off of her and it was 3 weeks before we took her back out with a collar on.

Jeez.

Because I couldn't do it. I mean, she would, she would literally walk, she would go out to the front porch and she would lay down and she would not leave the front porch. And so I was like, we, we've got a problem. And even today, it's been— how long have I had that in? A month? Yeah, maybe longer. And I still have not turned it above a beep. Now, they really want you to have it on the lowest setting possible with an electrical current going through it.

Right.

So they want you to— if you can put it on level 1, that's where they want you to put it because it doesn't hurt the dog hard. I mean, none of them really hurt the dog, uh, but you know, the lowest amount of correction that you can give them is optimal. But she hears that beep and she runs back. I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't take much. And she's slowly going, like, getting over it.

Yeah.

But it's taking a while. She is not liking what's happening. So we're still dealing with this. So my, my biggest con is that it, it is— you have to thoroughly understand your transmitter. And if you don't fully understand it, call their customer service and, and they will, they will walk you through it. And it is worth doing that because it, it was not real clear how to, how to figure that out. And I really, I, I damaged my dog. I really damaged my dog.

Dog needs a therapist now.

There's no doubt.

Yeah.

So, well, let's talk about yours for a minute. Like, so yours is It's got a similar function. In fact, when we first moved here, my dog lived with you for a while, my Australian Shepherd. You happened to have an extra collar.

Yeah, we did. He existed on the system quite well. Smarter dogs figure it out a little bit quicker. He really picked it up just because he was watching the other dog, and we still had the flags up. Ours is a little bit— we actually hired Invisible Fence. Um, and I'll just be— I'll be as frank as possible with this. Um, like, we, we absolutely love the system, and we, we spent, uh, I want to say it was like $3,400 to have it installed. Now, to be fair, we covered 6 acres.

Yeah, now that's, that's one of the things you have to know about some of these. Not all of them will, will cover that much area. That's right, right. The one that I bought will cover 10 acres.

Okay.

And then I think the one above it'll cover like 500 or something.

Oh wow.

Like, it'll, it'll, it'll do an amazing amount, but you really have to pay attention to how much space you need to cover.

Yeah, yeah. And so like, we, we've been— I mean, like, as far as like the functionality of the system, it's been great. Um, and some of the, some of the add-ons that we've never taken advantage of with the system. So like, one of, one of the things you can do Um, and I don't know if your system can do this or not. Um, I, I honestly haven't spent a whole lot of time researching the other ones. Um, but like, we could, we could put like a specific transmitter like on a piece of furniture in order to deter them from getting on that piece of furniture.

Interesting.

We could put it, uh, we could put a specific transmitter, and this is all like wireless stuff that we could add on, on the trash cans and keep dogs from getting in the trash cans. And different things like that.

Right.

So you can, you can actually target specific areas. Um, so like one of the things that we've talked about is if we ever decided to get chickens, hmm, we could add that on or we could even just do an additional line around the chicken coop, keep the dogs outta the chickens cuz we have a dog that likes to eat chickens. Yep.

That's why he lives with you.

That's why he lives with me now. Um, so, but, uh, so, so we have a lot of those options. We haven't ever taken advantage of it. Um, but I will— and one of the things that they'll, they'll sell you on with Invisible Fence, which is, which is a great addition, is they'll actually send the guy out, they'll train the dog for you. Oh, that's nice. Um, you know, so like if you spend so much money with them, they're gonna send the guy out, they're gonna flag it, they're gonna train the dog. I think they do like 2 or 3 training sessions with, with your dogs. Um, and they'll come out and do it with you and show you.

That would have been, that would have been helpful for me.

I would have— I'm sure your dog would have appreciated it. Well, we would have had a much better experience today if that would have happened. Um, so, but, and then obviously the install. I mean, like, in the— I mean, he— I mean, the guy that came out and installed it, he did it in a day, which was impressive. And he did not have a trencher.

Really?

Yeah. No, I mean, he had like some specific tools he was using, and he had a cutter because he actually went underneath our, our driveway.

Uh-huh.

Um, which was a booger. Yeah.

I mean, again, you have to make a loop with this thing, and so you have 2 options. You can either dig a trench, like, like use it, use a cutter and go through the driveway, or you can go under if you have the right deal. For us, for us, we, you know, our, our driveway has a natural break in it.

Yeah, an expansion joint.

Expansion joint. And we just put it down that. Yeah, that's what we did.

So, so he, he, he put all that in. The other thing that was really good is our, our neighbor had already put one on his property, and so our guy was able to come out and measure exactly how far away it needed to be. That was not something I ever had to worry about. Um, and then the system itself was warrantied for like a year.

Okay.

Um, so all of that really, really good stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, it worked properly. It came with 2 collars. Um, you can actually— I think with, with our system, if I understood you right, you adjust the intensity at the unit. On ours, you adjust the intensity on the collar.

Okay.

And so you can set different intensities for different dogs, different collars, different dogs.

Okay.

Is yours just kind of a monolith of settings?

Yeah, so, so you, you make the, the adjustment at the transmitter and whatever collar is on that transmitter is, you know, they're all the same.

Okay.

So I think— I don't remember how many you can put on a system. I think, I think I can put like 5 on a system, something like that, but they're all gonna be the same setting.

Okay.

You can't change it Per collar.

Yeah, so for us it's basically— and like, the collars on ours are expensive, I mean, they're like $200.

Yeah, I mean, obviously these aren't quite that, but they look, they look very similar to your collars. But they're— but the ones you have are obviously a lot more high-tech, and there's way more options. We don't— I mean, we don't have any of those options you were talking about. Okay, this one is the, the one you're talking about is definitely a next-level system.

It may be, I don't know. I just didn't know how all that— how— I just know how ours works.

Sure.

Um, so from what I understand, we can just keep adding collars and collars and collars. We've had 3 on this one so far. Um, that's good. And, uh, you know, as far as I know, they've all worked fine.

Yeah.

Um, so the, the— that— those have all been pluses. The, the downside has been is after about a year Um, we've probably spent anywhere from $300 to $600 maintaining this thing annually.

Hmm.

Um, we have constant line breaks in our system. Um, that, and, you know, finding a break in a line, and this, this is where it gets a little tricky, right? It's like once you've buried that line, unless you can actually find where the ground has been dug up or something's happened, you don't know where that break is. Right. And so they have specific pieces of equipment that they can actually bring out and locate that piece. that broke— that break in the line really, really quick. Um, but like every time they come, it's like $150.

Wow.

Um, and, and so like they've even— like, I'm— I've been such a good customer over the years, they've just been giving me the parts and pieces to fix it. But it's like, I don't know how to find the breaks, guys. Yeah, I mean, like, and like I genuinely don't have the time to sit and like walk the whole property line and, and try and— is that one? Is that one? Is that— I don't know.

Yeah, so Does, does your collar emit a sound as well?

Yes.

So, I mean, you would literally have to walk it and even hold and hold it, right?

Well, all you would know, and that, and that's the thing, is you don't— breaking it on this system doesn't, uh, basically if there's a break, you're not going to be able to hear it. It's not going to beep anywhere.

Oh, so if there's a break, it's just, it's just off. It's then it's completely off, right?

Okay. Um, and so, you know, and we always— well, the good news is we know it's broken because the, the home base unit will, or the hub will, will tell you. It has an indication sound that it plays and lets you know. It's like, that's the worst sound in the world because, you know, when you hear it, it's like, well, there went $150 at least.

So it's, it's not necessarily the sound, completely unpleasant, which I'm sure it is.

Yeah.

But it's like—

It has a Pavlovian response to my wallet. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, and so like, it's, there's, we've, we've just sort of learned like we're gonna have at least 1 or 2 breaks a year. It's just gonna happen. They're gonna have to come out and fix it. Um, and they do, they do a great job coming and fixing it. It's just like, good grief, come on.

Yeah.

Just 1 year.

Yeah.

Um, but it's, it's been pretty consistent and I don't think that's not, I don't think that's I'm not trying to say anything is bad about what they used or anything like that. I think it's just sort of the way it is.

I mean, it still happens.

Well, especially, it's, you know, I think a lot of these systems were really designed to be in neighborhoods. Yeah. Not necessarily on a big piece of property like what we're operating off of.

Well, and, and how, how deep that thing is buried makes a big difference too.

Sure.

I mean, if it's buried 6 inches, the likelihood of it breaking Breaking is less than if it's 3 inches, you know. But yeah, and if, you know, for mine, we're roughly 3 inches, and I mean, it might not take much for something to dig that up, or, you know, a squirrel could potentially do that.

Yeah, you know, and I'm like, for us, we've had like a horse step on it. Yeah, when it's been muddy or whatever. Um, and well, and to their credit, one time we actually had a situation where somehow the lines got moved a little bit too much, and, uh, we were actually getting interference from our neighbors. And they're like, hey, we installed it, we'll fix it. And so, you know, they went through and fixed all of it for us. Um, so, but we've, we've had some other issues with it, like the backup battery went out, and rather than replace it, we just bypassed it. And they kind of walked us through how to do that because the backup battery is really expensive. And

yeah, um, you know, we weren't looking to spend that much money at that time, and you don't really need it, um, unless the power goes out.

Yeah, and that is one of the things that I was going to say. If your power goes out, don't let your dog out.

Don't let your dog out.

I mean, that's, that's the only other option really.

But like, honestly, like ours, I mean, they, you know, they've, they've been on it for so long now, they don't— I mean, even if the power goes out, they just sort of know their perimeter.

Yeah, no, that's, that's one of the things that, that is beautiful about it is you do— I mean, they learn what they can do. My dog, even now, she knows that if she goes a certain distance, then, I mean, she, she kind of stays close to the house.

Yeah.

And, and I really want her to venture out a little bit, but it's gonna take some time. She's gonna have to learn.

Yeah. And so all that to say, I mean, would I, would I spend the 3 grand again? Every time.

Yeah, every time. Absolutely.

Um, one, just because, I mean, like, those— there's no way I could have done that in a day.

No, not 6 acres.

No. Um, and, and then had somebody train it and warranty it. And, you know, the customer service that I get from that— I don't like paying the amount that I have to pay for the upkeep on it. Yeah, but I mean, like, that upkeep is minimal compared to the installation price. And so, like, you know, I'm always, I always am happy to pay it. I don't like that it breaks and, you know, things need to be— but, you know, most everything requires some level of maintenance and upkeep in order to maintain And I imagine, you know, uh, you know, the collars that we bought, those have actually stayed really well. I mean, they work well, they, they still look nice, um, the dogs don't seem to mind them.

Um, so that, that's been nice. I mean, for the price point on those, I mean, that's a 5-year collar. That's pretty high-tech collar.

Yeah.

To last this long.

Yeah, no doubt. Uh, we, we actually— so, so ours comes with a red a red, just nylon collar, right? And it's kind of a one-size-fits-all. So I mean, you can cut it down, but we got on their website and they offer multiple collar options. You have to buy them, I think, for like $8. We bought one that was size-specific and it was colorful.

Oh, it's just the actual nylon piece, not the, not the transmitter, or the— what would that be? What is that?

It's Yeah, the, the— not the receiver, uh, but the actual collar itself. And so we bought a different collar just to—

Just because.

Well, yeah, the red— I mean, we have a female dog, so we wanted— my kids specifically were like, she needs pink or purple. Okay, well, yeah, we can do that. So, you know, there, there's going to be pluses and minuses of all of these things, and really you have to figure out, okay, what kind of house do I have? Yeah, what kind of property am I trying to secure here? And know that, you know, there's a lot of things that can go into this. And one of the things that mine offers that, um, that's nice is you have different frequencies that you can put it on. So if your neighbor has one, you can just change it to a different frequency and you don't have to worry about it being too close to theirs. Um, but that

being said, I mean, if you have a bigger property, you need some of the add-ons like you were talking about.

Yeah.

You kind of got to know what you're, what you're up against.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And then, and you don't really know a lot of times until you get that system in place. And so it's nice to have some other additional options. Um, you know, thankfully we don't have a lot of, you know, dumpster pandas for dogs. Right. Um, and so we've, we've never really had to worry about that too much. Um, and you know, they're all pretty, we don't, our dogs really don't come inside all that much. Yeah. I mean, they're, they're, they're working dogs. So I mean, like they just, they kind of hang out outside and do their thing. Yeah. Um, so, but like even when they do come inside occasionally, like they don't really care about getting on the furniture. They've got their

beds, right? They do their own thing.

Yeah, so they're just happy to be inside.

Yeah.

So, so just before the show went up, we actually put a question out. You did?

Yeah.

Uh, on, on Facebook, basically asking, do you think that an invisible fence— oh, or, you know, that's the brand of yours, but they're all kind of invisible fences.

Yeah.

Um, an electric fence like this, a buried electric fence Do you believe that it adds any value to your home? I know at the time, we only had one response. Maybe we've got more at the moment. This one person said no, she doesn't believe it. She does own one. She does own an invisible fence. She didn't believe that it enhances the value. Do you have that pulled up?

Yeah, I was going to say, it's Lindsay, and I'm going to try this last name. It's Oberneufahmen.

That's not right.

Is it not right?

I don't know, but you probably screwed that up. Sorry, Lindsay.

Let us know, Lindsay.

We're glad that you left us a comment. What was her comment specifically?

It was basically, no, that it doesn't add value because, one, not everyone owns a pet, and then, two, the people that do own a pet, it's specifically just to keep things out, and it's for dogs. For them, it's been really valuable. She doesn't think that it would be something that across the board would add value to the home. Also, we had our friend Lisa chime in. She said, really, just if they have a dog. I will tell folks, with the invisible fence, they make it for cats, too, which is great for someone like me who would never have an indoor cat anyway.

Same. We're dog people.

If I'm gonna have a cat, it's gonna be outside. I don't necessarily care if it wanders off because I'm gonna have a cat if it's gonna be fixed. Yeah, like, you know, utility I have in a cat is for catching mice and rats.

That's right. So, and they're pretty—

And the occasional tussle with a raccoon. Yeah, so they will fight raccoons like crazy.

Oh yeah, and they win. They do win most of the time, which is crazy because raccoons are nasty. And they're big. A lot of times they're bigger than the cats. Yeah, so it's crazy. Well, so I, I was actually a little bit shocked by those responses. I was too, but I'm a dog person.

Sure.

So I'll tell you, we, we looked at a home before we bought the one we had, that we have, and they had an invisible fence. And I remember us talking like, that's a great— that's great, we wouldn't have to do that. It's already, it's already done. We don't have to— yeah, one less thing that we have to do. And, and I could, I could refuse their, their comment and say, well, my other alternative is to put a fence up.

Well, which was like $5,000.

$5,000. And there are some people— if you're gonna buy a house on a golf course like I've got, you don't want a fence, right? You want to be able to, you know, see. Even though it's a wrought iron fence, you don't want that barrier in your backyard. A lot of people don't want that. So Again, there's going to be opinions on this. Here's what I would say. Don't go put an invisible fence in thinking it's going to up the value of your home.

Sure.

I had a pretty relatively low investment cost, less than $400, and I've got an invisible fence. Does it add value to my home at that point? Probably. For $400, it's not hurting anything. You spend almost $3,500, so it's a much different investment. And would you get that back? Who knows?

Well, like with, with us, I, I would, I would be hard-pressed to believe that someone would buy the property I'm on right now and not be interested in having a dog.

I'm with you on that. Most people on multiple acres need a dog.

I'm sure they're out there, You know, but if, if it were me, um, and most of my, most of my property's barbed wire, right? So I mean, like, it's not preventing a dog from going anywhere, or— and trust me, it's not preventing dogs from coming in because they cross my property all the time, right? Um, and not without being, uh, aggressively shooed. Let's put it that way. So not intelligent animals, because we We have repeat offenders. Yes. Um, but anyway, uh, it's, it's not going to keep them from going anywhere. And so like, if I, if I bought this property and like someone were to say like, hey, if you got dogs, the whole property's covered, that's a huge plus for me.

Absolutely.

I'm not having to put in like an expensive kennel. I'm not having to put in an extra small— which was the, the previous owner's solution on this place was to just put in a really crappy chain-link fence in an area to contain the dogs.

I, I don't— I find it hard to believe that the previous owner did something crappy to your house.

That seems like at the high end of what he would—

his accomplishment. Sounds to me like he, he really went all out.

You know, I was, I was showing Kevin some pictures of the house, but like right after I got a hold of it, I was showing him like specifically of the studio, some stuff. Uh, and like, it's, it's, it's pretty incredible. The the transformation that's occurred around here?

It was incredible, and I was incredulous. I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

Because you'd never seen it.

I'd never seen it. No.

It was, it was pretty insane.

Yeah. Well, and you know, to your point, I, I find it hard to believe that someone would look at a home that had an underground fence and went, that's completely useless to me.

Sure.

I mean, maybe they would say, I would never use that or anything, but I mean, it's, it's one of those things where you go, oh, well, that's, that's an option. It's something, you know, something that if I ever chose to get a dog, I would not have to worry about.

Yeah. You know, you know, maybe, maybe a good way to think about this is it's sort of like a bidet.

Okay.

Would you ever install one? Probably not.

Yeah.

But if it was there, you'd be like, isn't that interesting?

Yeah. And that would—

more than what I was expecting.

Yeah, it's gone. I would think, ooh, that's different. Yeah.

Which, you know, all the bidet people were laughing at the toilet paper hoarders.

Oh, yeah. Oh, that was funny.

We saw y'all coming a mile away.

Yeah. They're going, OK, who's laughing now?

That's right.

Yeah, exactly.

We actually need to look into bidet sales. for COVID. I bet you there would be a high correlation.

I, I bet you're right. And, uh, by the way, we would, uh, test drive a bidet if someone out there, you know, wants us to review one. Send it to us.

We'll have Paul put it in.

Yeah, I mean, he could definitely do it. Now, we're not gonna— we're gonna test it at the same time. Yeah, you know, I'll let you test it and then I'll test it.

It's probably a good place to start our research. Paul, how many people called you to put in a bidet?

Uh, yeah, it's like Paul's never needed to stock bidets, and, and recently he could have made a fortune. Oh man, we are off the rails, people. Oh well, we are off the rails.

Where would we be if we didn't go off the rails?

That's a good point. We would not be The Homeowner Show.

We wouldn't.

No, no, absolutely not.

You got to be you, Kev.

I try my best.

All right, anything else about all these electrical fences and high-tech doodads and gadgets?

No, I mean, we could talk for a while about other things that I've— you know, we could talk really specifics and those types of things. I would, I would say this: do your research and find what's best for you. And Craig and I have some, you know, experience with this. So if you have any questions, send us an email. info@homewownershow.com. Go to our Facebook page, leave us a message. Instagram, send us a message there as well. Um, you know, get ahold of us and we'll answer any questions that we can.

Yeah.

And we'll find the answer if we don't have— if we can't— if we don't have it immediately on hand. So just let us know. We'd love to hear from you. If you have an invisible fence or an electric fence of some sort, let us know what you like or dislike about it. That would be really, really good to know.

Do you have it for a cat? That's what I really want to know. I want to hear from the cat people.

Yeah, exactly. Honestly, I want to know what your experience has been. Has it been positive? Has it been negative? Has there been an issue with your story going, that didn't work the way I needed it to, and so I'm done? Your dog has gotten out of the fence before.

Yes.

That's a problem. when that happens.

Yeah.

So, you know, at the end of the day, do your research, figure out what's gonna work best for you, and, you know, go from there.

Yeah. Well, and if you haven't yet, hit the subscribe button because you hung with us this long, you obviously enjoy the show. So go ahead and hit that, hit the like button, the share button, and send it out to all your friends who don't know how to take care of their homes, and we're gonna help them.

That is right. Well, Thanks for downloading this show, for supporting us in all the ways that you do, and we'll be here every Tuesday. Till then, we'll see you next time.

See ya!