Right now we're going through a period of adjustment as my dogs get used to an "invisible fence," a wire transmitter than runs around the circumference of the yard. The "volume" is set at the level to keep them a certain distance to keep them away from the fences and they wear collars that have a tiny battery pack receiver that delivers a zap if they get too close. They had a lot of training leading up to the setting the collars in the charged mode (they use a watch battery, so it isn't like an electric fence, but they don't like it). They've been great about staying where they're supposed to, until this weekend. The neighbors are dog-sitting a little Boston terrier who really torques my two, and they forced past the invisible boundary and pressed themselves against the fence to snap at that little dog, regardless of the collar zapping them. The trainer is coming today to adjust the collar settings and see if we need to do more training.

It happened yesterday and I don't want the dogs continuing to ignore the collar today since that dog is still there, so I'm not letting them get near that fence this morning. For a while one was in the garage and one in the kennel. I let them out every hour or so, they take a little run in the yard and take care of business. We went through this for weeks as they first were introduced to the system and I had to walk them on leash near the fence to teach them to avoid it. Depending on who was couped up with or without the other, they go through this ritualized (and very fast) racing around the yard, knocking each other over, rolling, leg-and-ear-and-collar-biting (not drawing blood), growling, snapping, barking, and humping. Under normal behavior when they aren't confined they race around and do the rest but without the humping. If, however, I have confined them even for a little while, upon release, they have to sort through who was in the dominant kennel or garage. If they are closed together in the kennel they don't do that much, but they sit and bark and that isn't really great to listen to.

I have a catahoula and a pitbull, about evenly sized height-wise though the pit outweighs the other by 15 - 20 pounds. That doesn't seem to matter, I see the catahoula rolling the pit as often as I see the reverse.

They're pretty interesting to watch, but when they start racing, look out. They misjudged this morning and have given rise to a silver-dollar sized bruise on my shin where one bony dog smacked into me on one pass. Ouch!

SRS