May 18, 2011
At what age can I train my 13 week old puppy to the underground fence?
Full Question:
Hello. We have a 13 week old german shepherd female that we got one week ago. She is wonderful - a bit high strung, however. I ordered your puppy DVD, pack leader DVD, and obedience DVD yesterday. I'm looking forward to getting them. I do have one question and I can't find the answer posted on your website or forum, so I decided to email you. At what age is a good time to train a puppy to an underground fence? We have the fence on the perimeter of our 5 acre property and have our other dog, an australian shepherd, trained to it already. I don't want to start training her to the fence too early and make her skittish but I also am eager to get her trained to it so we can let her out of her kennel.....any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
Sheila
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![Cindy](https://leerburg.com/Photos/articles/authors/cindyrhodes.jpg)
I wouldn’t be in a hurry to train her to the underground fence. The reason is that puppies need us to monitor them when they are outside, to prevent them from getting into things they shouldn’t (ie chewing the siding, digging up landscaping, etc..). I want my puppies to be completely housetrained and to be responsive to me under distraction before I would give them that kind of freedom. The age for that varies, but for my own puppies, it would likely be a minimum of a year old and could be longer.
Giving a young dog access to 5 acres alone goes against all the leadership I want to offer to my dogs.
Cindy
Giving a young dog access to 5 acres alone goes against all the leadership I want to offer to my dogs.
Cindy
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