Help me find

[Lynn Musgrave]

ok Guys I know I need lots of help .......but I have looked everywhere for the post about how to keep our little friends around the camper. Awhile back someone( maybe Gina D) explained how they put up fencing around their camper to keep their doggies from going under it..........then one of the guys posted some pictures and dirtections on how to make a Xpen type set up using PVC pipe & sunscreen type window screen wire.........I have tried for days to find that post and have had no luck..........if anyone knows what I am talking about and can point me to it I would "Dance at Your Wedding" ( no that is an old East Texas saying from my childhood.....) I know everyone will jump in to help so I will just say Thanks now and Later too..........Lynn M

[Donna D.]

Lynn, if that information was posted prior to November...it was lost to the hacker. If may have been Joy A that posted some of the information/pics. You could send her an e-mail/PM and I know she hangs at YahooScampers too...if you're in a hurry to get a hold of her.

Surely with all the pet owners we have on this forum...someone can help Lynn out

[jack maloney]

Have you considered using a leash running on a pulley on an overhead line? These 'dog trolley' systems are cheap, compact, easy to use, and - unlike cumbersome portable cages, are virtually escape-proof. They also allow the dog more freedom of movement and exercise than any portable fence. We travel with a very, very active field-bred English springer, and use the dog trolley almost exclusively. Just tie the overhead line between two trees, hook up Fido's leash with a carabiner, and you're in business.

[Karalyn]

Ok, I have 4 of the x-pens and they go all around the camper. I have one smaller one I can climb over if not wanting to take the hooks apart to get into the camper. I plan to get another one this year, as I want a bigger area for the dogs, and I want to arrange it so that I can go to the camper door without getting dog poo on my shoes.
You did not say what kind of dogs you have. I have Maltese and they usually can get by with a 24" high fence. I bought the 36" fence because I have a climber. The campers at the Lanesboro campout last fall can vouch for little 3 lb Nicky climbing that 36" high fence to get to me at the other campsites.
X-Pens can be found at petsmart, Petco and many other outlets. Your veterinarian could maybe order you some if no pet store near by.
Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

[Gina D.]

Both Joy and I have doggie jails. Joys set up is a lot more elaborate, encircling her whol trailer.

Mine is a simple glorified child jail that I got at Pet Smart.

Here is a picture.. Joy can tell you about hers.

EDIT.. sorry Karalyn, I got you mixed up with Joy! Doh!

[Karalyn]

her is another. Also the dogs can crawl under the camper to keep cool. Ifit should rain they are protected from sun and rain. Their little kennels fit under the camper also. I love this set up.
It takes a little time to set it up, but once set up they are confined (unless you have a digger or a climber.)

[Susan Tiller]

Digger or climber? Let us break out the EZ Twist Screenroom. Remember that thing that all of us had so much fun putting up and even more taking it down? I use it for my cat (s) when camping and by using more tent stake things to really secure the bottm keep my siamese, Phussy and bengal, Shelia well confined and shaded. ???Dogs should work too????

[Karen K.]

I get my exercise pens from carealotpets.com. As good a price as I have found anywhere else. Also I have a couple of crates that work like the ez twist sun room, one of them from Wally world and the larger one from Gander Mountain. These are really nice to keep in the camper as they take up so little room.

Karen K.

[Lynn Musgrave]

Thanks everyone ...........I have a 3 year old Chihuahua,and as everyone know Pebbles is not spoiled, Ok well not much anyway. I do use xpens & crates for her. I think what I was looking for was posted after the hack......I also have 2 grandsons,the youngest is 8 months old today . I am fair with them and they are not spoiled any more than Pebbles....LOL They travel a lot & do have an xpen for him........but it is heavy & takes up lots of room. What I was looking for folds,or rather rolls up and takes up very little space. It seems like it was one of the guys that posted a link to his sight with pictures of his PVC self built xpen. Thanks again for all the help I will keep looking and Maybe I will run across it.

Oh I also have "grand dogs" that show in aglity......our daughter use to show conformation but gave that up for the fun and exercise of aglity.

[Gina D.]

Lynn,

It still may be mine you were thinking of. It folds flat and it weighs... nothing. A chewy would not be a big challenge for it at all.

I went with this because the X-Pens are way to heavy and cumbersome for me.

[Karalyn]

Gina, I went with the x pens because I did not know yours were lighter. Your set up looks thicker and bulkier though. Is it??? I would need at least 5 of them to go around the camper and the easier to set up the better.
My dogs would chew through any thin plastic, and that screen room for the cats looks great, except my dogs would chew through it in no time (anything to get them to come to mom )

[Doug Mager]

Well here's what we do when we go camping with our German Shepherd. We have her trained to a product called Invisible Fence. It also goes by other names but they all work the same way. This is an eletrical device that consists of a radio transmitter that is connected up to a small gauge insulated wire. This wire is laid out (and maybe even tent pegged to the ground to help prevent a tripping hazard) around your campsite and plugged in. The dog(s) AND/or cat(s) each wear a small receiver strapped aroung the pets neck like a regular coller. The receivers come in small, medium and large sizes depending on the size of the animal to be contained. This is a VERY effective system and once the pet is trained to it, they will actually "beg" to be put on it. (Well our dog does anyway). It gives them almost total freedom of your "pegged out" site. The only drawback to it is, that it will NOT keep other animals out of your area. This product is available at Sears stores and most all other Pet Stores. Worth a try, it works for us and doesn't leave your sight looking like you've got infants frollicing in their little cages. I also know this product has been used on other livestock as well. The device sends a mild shock to the radio receiver upon close contact to the radio antenna (the wire). This causes a mild shock akin to licking a 9V battery to the pet and they soon learn to visually LOOK where their boundrys are.

[Susan Tiller]

Doug, we used one with our Golden here at home. I never thought about using it for cats. Great idea. I will try to locate all stored parts and put shocky thingy on a cat's wakling jacket and give it a try. I seem to remember that it had different levels for the control issue. Once trained, the dog never left the boundry after the fence was stored. This would be great for camping.

[Doug Mager]

We are on small acerage here in Iron Mountain and have a small "kreek" runnin through our property. The wire is run through an old garden hose and submerged across the water and provides control that way as well. We liked this system so much, we mounted the box on a small sheet of plywood (to hang it on a wall at home), put electrical plugs on the wire to make re-connection a snap, took the box down to our place in N.W. Washington, ran the same wire around our place and put similar plugs onto the wires and connected it up. Our dog is now free to run the property. It really scares lookie lou's who venture near our place to see this rather large viciously barking shephard running toward them and the STOP on a dime right at the property line

[jack maloney]

Doug: How do you power your electric fence when you're boondocking? Also, how do you deal with campgrounds (as in almost all state and national parks and forests) where they require dogs to be on leash at all times? Finally, how do you keep from frightening passersby who don't realize your "viciously barking" dog is 'wired'?

[Brian B-P]

We use a dog trolley whenever we leave our 45 kg (100 lb) mutt outside in front of the house (the fenced run is in back), and it generally works fine. This is a permanent installation; I have not tried a setup temporarily hooked on to trees at a campsite.

My only reservation with the trolley system is that we have to be careful what is in range, since the dog gets the drop cable or chain (the part which comes down from the overhead cable) wrapped around stuff, which can be deadly for car mirrors. I finally put a cable clamp on the cable far enough from the tree that holds up the end of the overhead cable to stop the traveling pulley (trolley) and keep him from getting wrapped around that tree.

We also tried an radio (invisible) fence (again at home) with a previous dog, with little success; however, nearby neighbors have had great sucess with theirs. It really depends on the dog, as some will just take the shock as an irritation on their way to where ever they're going - the shock ends when they leave the vicinity of the fence wire, whether they are inside or outside of the boundary. Even the neighbor for whom it worked well had a break in the wire, didn't notice (or bother to fix it) for some time, and when the dog learned that the fence was down it started wandering again - right into our yard to kill one of our ducks. Even a dead battery in the collar-mounted receiver is an open door for the dog, without the owner's knowledge.

I would also be cautious about using a radio fence as a temporary setup - ours came with a set of white flags (like the ones used to mark buried utilities when you "call before you dig") to show the dog where the line is so they can learn the boundaries. After the boundaries are learned, the flags are not longer needed. Re-learning at each site would work better for some dogs than others; my guess is that Doug's German Shepherd is a quick study.

My radio fence has an AC power supply, but it takes little power, since it's just a very low-powered radio transmitter with a long antenna (the "fence") and a battery-powered receiver on the dog's collar.

I am generally not afraid of dogs, but would be cautious about any agressively behaving animal that was not positively restrained, even if I knew it had a radio collar system.

[jack maloney]

Brian: We've used the dog trolley just about everywhere across the continent. As you say, we make sure the ground is clear of obstructions, and I tie a stop into the line if necessary to prevent tangles. We just use a nylon trolley rope between trees, and a small carabiner to attach the dog's lead. Only nuisance is that nylon stretches, so we have to tighten the trolley line every so often - I might switch to a non-stretching poly rope this year.

On the very few campsites which lack trees, we anchor Kerry with a large steel corkscrew and a 10-foot cable.

The main thing about traveling with dogs (and ours is a very energetic hunting breed) is to make sure they get plenty of exercise outside of the campsite, with walks, ball chases and water retrieves; good workouts afield helps them quiet down in the campground. Even on traveling days, we stop along the way to have fun with the dog. Here's Kerry in Oregon last summer - if you click on the photo and look very closely straight up from her head, you can see the ball in the air.

[Doug Mager]

Jack..
Well, we don't usually "do" boon docking but we do have a power source that will easily handle the load of the Invisible Fence. The On Leash policy?? Well even if your pet is CAGED, its still not "on leash", but to better answer your poser, we haven't had a problem with this issue in the past and we've had the dog on this system for 10 years now.

[jack maloney]

It really scares lookie lou's who venture near our place to see this rather large viciously barking shephard running toward them and the STOP on a dime right at the property line

Sorry, Doug, but I don't find a "large viciously barking" dog with no visible restraint amusing, anywhere -- and especially in an RV campground. We don't go to RV parks to be scared. Leashes don't just restrain dogs - they also reassure people walking past the campsite.

[Susan Tiller]

Sorry, Doug, but I don't find a "large viciously barking" dog with no visible restraint amusing, anywhere -- and especially in an RV campground. We don't go to RV parks to be scared. Leashes don't just restrain dogs - they also reassure people walking past the campsite.

Jack you made your point. Folks that do not have their dogs and children on leashes that should, might get more than they bargan for walking into Doug's camp site or the would be thief.

I for one find it just as anoying to be walking to the shower in the campground road and have to endue the yap, yap of small yapping dogs in "kiddie yards" at camp sites on the way. These are just as dangerous(actually more) because these "kiddie yards" do not have tops and a previous post in this thread, states hers jumps the fence and follows her. These poochs are not restrained and I have been been bitten more by small yapping dogs on my heals than I want to remember. They really "junk-up" a camp site with all these pens and smell until the poop is picked up. My 2 cents worth.