Do you know what's worse? Your dog straying out of the farm and getting eaten by a bear. Or run over by a truck

Oh it's for the dog's own good? Well in that case you can lock it up in a pen so it can't get out, or the bears come in. That will keep it safe.

Nothing wrong with that, is there?

What exactly are you arguing for?

Thanks, that was hilarious.

You're welcome, I can see you were eager to engage in meaningful conversation.

I had the same initial reaction but then again I don't have a dog nor do I have a large enough estate to ever need such a device anyway. Clearly I don't have the data to weigh in on this issue. That being said if you consider that having dogs in a very large outdoors environment with a colar that zaps them (after warning them) if they stray too far is abuse, then isn't keeping the same dog in a small cramped urban flat much, much worse? If I was the dog I know what I'd choose.

That being said I think if I was in their position (and again, I'm very far from it) I think I'd prefer having an actual physical fence.

For what it's worth, my folks have an actual physical fence but it is just insufficient. The dog would always figure out a way through or under or over it. The shock collar is also not perfect but far more effective.

One thing that's far more effective is tying the dog up to a pole and never letting it roam free.

Is there an objection to handling a dog in this manner?

All day? I guess I'm making an assumption here about the internal desires of a dog but I think she'd prefer to roam several hectares, even with the risk of an electrical shock, rather than be tied to a stick.

Maybe she would prefer to roam free behind an ordinary fence and not have to risk an electrical shock?

The reason this is used instead of a fence has nothing to do with the dog's preferences (which of course we can't know), safety, or convenience. Instead, the reason seems to be cost. I don't see how it's possible to justify avoiding the cost of building a fence by mistreating your animals. If the man who has this farm can't keep dogs without delivering electric shocks to them, then maybe he shouldn't have any dogs.

I'm curious how much firsthand knowledge you have of these systems.

1) The electrical shock is not truly painful. It's startling and highly unpleasant, but it's not painful, for short bursts. I can't speak for all systems, but for the ones I tested (albeit holding the collar in my hand, not on my neck), it was no worse than typical electric fencing, which is widely used.

2) These systems have the benefit of not affecting other animals, and dogs and other animals cannot get stuck in them. We had an electric fence around a duck nesting ground growing up, and I'll never forget the morning we found a whimpering fox that had somehow gotten tangled in the wires. I guess it had jumped at the shock and pulled a wire off the fence? I don't know. But it had the electrified wire wrapped around a back paw. At least it was a pulsing fence (rather than constant current); so the fox didn't appear to have a bad burn, though I'm sure being stuck in it for hours was terrible (and truly painful).

2b) They also do not impede the traffic or cut off travel corridors of other wildlife, which can be a real problem in some areas.

3) Ordinary fences are (often) less effective. Given enough time and a large amount of fence that cannot be thoroughly checked & repaired regularly, dogs will find a way to escape. They'll dig under, they'll jump over, they'll climb, they'll chew holes in, etc. We had a super smart lab who figured out how to climb a chain link fence. Depending on the risks of escape, this can be highly dangerous.

4) The risk of shock is typically very low. When these systems are installed, they are typically buried along natural boundaries, and when they aren't, you put temporary flags in the ground to show the dog where the boundary is. So the dog very quickly learns the boundary, learns what the beep means, and rarely gets a shock after the first couple of days.

Overall, I don't think these systems are signficantly less humane than other types of fencing – probably more humane if you're comparing them to traditional electric fencing.

That said, these fences aren't perfect either. I have another friend who installed one to keep his husky from leaving his ~3 acre yard, because the dog was breaking into a neighbor's chicken coop. It worked for a while, but eventually that husky realized she could just get a running start, jump over the boundary, take the brief shock, and then be free. The drive to get those chickens was just too compelling. Of course, the drive to return home was not quite as strong. So she'd sit at the edge of boundary, whining to be let back into the yard.

A traditional fence might have been more effective in that case, though I think that husky would have found a way out. She was relentless and clever. They had to get rid of her eventually, when their neighbor threatened to put out bowls of antifreeze – now that's disgusting! (To be fair, this was in rural Alabama ~15 years go, and that neighbor depended on the chickens/eggs for food. Still disgusting, but the frustration is understandable if a dog is literally taking food out of your kid's mouth.)

How would you keep a dog from straying into the wild and getting injured? These are pets and not wild animals able to survive in the bush on their own.

Talking with a friend recently about how "wild" our pet dogs are. In the local area, dogs get out at night and form packs that hunt calves and lambs and simply kill them and leave the bodies.

There is a good business in hunting feral cats and dogs that were pets and have been left to fend for themselves in the wild because they were no longer wanted.

It's changed as the demographics shifted and the county urbanized but thirty years ago the local sheriff still issued deputy animal control papers to hunters, farmers, woodsmen, etc. who reported dog packs. There are fewer farms, greater housing density, more posted land, revised laws, and different attitudes toward animal control (generally, better) but the problem still occasionally comes up. Feral dogs aren't just a semi-rural problem, this was the situation in Brooklyn https://gowanuslounge.blogspot.com/2007/07/dog-days-remember... and resulted in a handful of publicized attacks on joggers and pets.

The dogs I referred to are not feral as such. They are pets to someone. It is when they get together in packs that their behaviour goes wild. The owners are often unaware that their dogs have wandered about and partaken in killing of stock.

It is also applicable to cats.

Yup, many dog owners I know are shocked to find out that it's legal in most states to kill a dog that's harassing livestock(hasn't yet done physical harm).

Here the feral dog problem is solved enough that there's a substantial population of rabbits living in town.

(a small town in a rural county)

Are you saying that most people who have dogs in farms use invisible wires to keep them safe?

Because I'm in the position to know that this is not the case. My partner's father has a farm with animals, including dogs. The farm has a fence and the dogs can roam freely inside it.

Anecdotes are not data. I know plenty of farms that do use invisible fences. Dogs have a habit of digging under fences when determined.

As a nitpick, if I recall correctly, "negative reinforcement" is when you remove a desirable stimulus to reinforce behavior. In this case it's actually "positive punishment" as they are introducing an aversive stimulus to extinguish some behavior (go out of bounds).

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-punishment-2795413

It's less disgusting than seeing your poor dog smashed to hamburg by a pulp truck in the road, or put down by animal control because it wandered off and got antagonized.