A reader asked for citations to an old post which noted that clicker-maven Karen Pryor could not take her Border Terrier off-leash in the woods and used an Invisible Fence system to keep her dog in the yard.
Apparently the links in my 2017 post no longer work. 🤷♂️
Ah well, here are the sources for those that need them. It appears that with Ms. Pryor’s death, her web sites are being taken down, but computers and the Way Back Machine never sleep.
In the 1999 edition of “Don't Shoot the Dog,” Ms. Pryor writes:
"The same principle is at work in the Invisible Fence systems for keeping a dog on your property. A radio wire is strung around the area in which you want to confine the dog. The dog wears a collar with a receiver in it. If the dog gets too near the line, the collar shocks it. However, a few feet before that point, the collar gives a warning buzz. The warning buzzer is a discriminative stimulus for "Don't go any further." If the setup is properly installed, a trained dog can be effectively confined and will never receive an actual shock. I used such a fence when my terrier and I lived in a house in the woods. An actual fence would have been a perpetual invitation to try to dig under it or escape through an open gate; the conditioned warning signal and the Invisible Fence were far more secure."
Google books has the 1999 edition online and searchable (see “search inside”) >> https://www.google.com/books/edition/Don_t_Shoot_the_Dog/SgwoXzJG2-kC?hl=en&gl=US
And what about my note that Ms. Pryor could not train her Border Terrier not to chase squirrels?
That used to be found on her own web site, but that too has been taken down with her death.
The good news is that the original can be found on the “Way Back Machine” (web archive) >> https://web.archive.org/web/20200807181150/https://clickertraining.com/node/1344
"Going from that collie to terriers in the woods is just a shaping staircase; if you want to do it, it can be done, but it involves a lot of steps. For me, that's too much like work. My practical solution is a mix of training and management. The backyard is fenced, and there the dogs can bark and chase squirrels all they want. Outside the front door, on the sidewalk, we enjoy a shaped behavior of stalking squirrels, with an occasional brief 'chase' reinforcer. In the woods, my poodle, whose lust for squirrels is mitigated by his general timidity, can be off-leash, because he was quite easily shaped to come when called, even from squirrels. My 17-year-old border terrier, however, stays on-leash in the woods. From her standpoint, it's a lot better than no woods at all."
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