Why Michigan Dog Owners Need a Professional Dog Fence Inspection Every Spring

Thousands of Dog Owners in Southeast Michigan walk outdoors every spring and pull the leash off their Dog and expect that their Dog Fence is still working correctly like it had during last Fall.

It isn’t.

The harsh, cold winters of Michigan cause special hardships for underground pet containment systems. Your hidden fence could be compromised by lacking wire breaks, collapse, faded collar batteries, or issues with the signal by the time it thaws in March or April, which will only be revealed by your pup gnawing right through a fence they just haven’t worked on for weeks.

No, a professional spring inspection is not an option when it comes to maintenance. It is the one service call for Michigan dog owners that is the most critical in the year.

What Michigan Winters Do to Your Underground Dog Fence

It’s a fact all pet owners know that snow and ice are bad for outdoor equipment. The problem is that Michigan’s freeze-thaw is quite destructive to a buried dog fence system

Southeast Michigan is in a climate zone with constantly changing ground temperatures, often changing more than once per week, and sometimes crossing the freezing point multiple times. This continual expansion and contraction of the ground is known as frost heave. The ground becomes uneven as it freezes and melts.

Here’s what that does to your system:

Stress and break wires: During ground movement, there will be several outward forces on the buried boundary wire, landing it in several directions at once. The splice points (where wire sections connect) are the most susceptible. These joints have less flexibility than the wire, subject to repeated stress, causing cracks in the waterproofing and then in the wire.

Wire surfacing: Isolating sections of the boundary wire by driving it up out of the soil with frost heave. Foot traffic, lawn mowing, pets biting on it, and UV degradation from the sun are all dangers of bare wire laying on the top surface of the ground.

Crossings for the driveway and sidewalk: These are the top-risk areas in any Southeast Michigan real estate. Wire is laid under the flooring and pavement in small conduits. Wire may be completely cut or broken in two by a single snow plow pass, a heavy snow shovel or corrosion from road salts at a connector.

Collar battery failure: Cool weather slows up receiver collar battery performance by up to 20-50%. A flawed battery system used throughout the winter is not going to provide a good correction at the border and may not do so in all circumstances, even though it works normally on a strong battery.

The bad news is that your dog is likely to have discovered the needling location of the weak spot. High prey drive breeds such as stubborn ones, actively exploring boundaries. When they find it becomes possible to maneuver around the signal around the gap, that’s a habit they’ve acquired – and reminding and repeating are particularly challenging.

5 Reasons a Professional Inspection Beats a DIY Check

In the spring of the year many owners and dog owners wander around the borders, listen for the alarm of the transmitter and say “ok, it’s all right!”. That process captures easily discerned failures. Misses all other things.

What a professional Spring inspection will discover that a visual walkthrough won’t.

1. Wire break detection with signal-tracing equipment

Electronic wire break locators are used by professional technicians to send a signal down the boundary wire, and identify exactly when it begins to show continuity is interrupted. It is not possible to get a break in the ground 4 inches below the surface and 300 feet out of the way without using this equipment. Estimation (or connecting wire loops with no prior knowledge of the fault) hides the fault and may permanently contaminate the boundary map of your system!

2. Splice integrity testing

All join points/locations of your hidden fence are inspected for moisture integrity and connection of the fence. A corroded splice doesn’t necessarily activate a transmitter alarm, but it does cause the dog to be difficult to control or low power, and will be a deceptive weak signal.

3. Collar and receiver testing

Each receiver collar is tested by a professional to ensure that it tips at the correct distance at the correct correction level. Certainly after a collar has made it through a Michigan winter this is important. The best wireless dog fence collars and even system receivers for a wired fence go out of calibration after some time.

4. Boundary remapping

Frost heave and ground movement will not only break wires, they will move them, as well. A wire that has shifted 12 inches while the winters get frosty is like a 12-inch deliverer of a line of containment that has shifted without you knowing it. Technician rewalks, re-flags actual boundary for your dog to train on correct boundary.

5. Transmitter inspection

Transmitters installed outdoors or in the garages are tested for moisture problems, power outages caused by winter storms and correct signal strength. The narrower the correction zone, the easier it is for a dog to get into it, and a transmitter transmitting at reduced power creates a smaller correction zone.

The Hidden Cost of Skipping a Spring Inspection

Most dogs don’t get their ox created until there is a problem.

A professional spring inspection is normally only a small fraction of the cost of an emergency repair call. Once a wire break only requires perimeter tracing and repair is done the same day, emergency service is vastly more costly than preventive maintenance, particularly in Southeast Michigan. Now multiply the expense of training each dog to escape again, the numbers get even more lop-sided.

The monetary aspect is not all there is; beyond the costs there is also the safety issue because the dog that escapes the electric fence for dogs might be run down in traffic, potentially attacked by wildlife, open to the elements, and may never be seen again. The communities in these Southeast Michigan counties in Washtenaw, Macomb and Wayne have too much road traffic to prevent a running dog from being endangered.

No fence system of any sort offers an assumption of any kind that it will never need service. All good installers (even our Underground Fence Michigan guys) suggest annual spring inspections as good pet containment practice.

What to Do Right Now If You Haven’t Had an Inspection

If you have not scheduled a spring check, please do these quick questions while waiting for your check-up:

Be sure to verify the transmitter indicator light. A continuous green light is usually indicating that the loop is getting fully repaired. A flashing light, alarm or red indicator indicates a wire break – immediately maintain control of your dog’s leash.

Walk around the edge and search for buried wire with a surface. If there are wires above the grade, they should be identified and sent a report to your technician. Please don’t try to re-bury it without testing the system function first.

If you have one, use a collar tester to test your dog’s collar. While playing, put it on the edge of the successive lines and ensure that the collar beeps at the correct distance. If it doesn’t switch on, the collar battery is most probably dead or has an issue with the relationship to the signal.

Don’t assume the protection given by partial containment is adequate. If the wire break is part of a loop, there will be no transmitter alarm in a system with one wire break. Your dog could enter the “dead zone” before you do.

When spring is in the air, call in a professional for a detection before you begin your landscaping job. Of the major causes of new wire breaks in Southeast Michigan during April and May, as well as new wiring, aerating, and edging are the most common.

Why Southeast Michigan Dog Owners Trust Underground Fence Michigan

Underground Fence Michigan is owned and operated by the Belin family and provides underground fence services to a variety of areas in Southeast Michigan including Oakland, Wayne, Macomb, Washtenaw and Livingston counties. We install and maintain custom, without franchise markups, without speculative repair fees, enclosed fences and pet containment systems.

We perform full wire continuity testing, collar calibration and re-mapping boundaries as well as providing a written report detailing any problem identified with the collars as a result of our work during the inspection. On each call a professional signal-tracing device is used: as the national brands do, but at a much lower cost of service.

Even PetSafe®, DogWatch®, Dog Guard®, Pet Stop® and Invisible Fence® systems are serviced.

Plan your spring inspection ahead of the time for landscaping. The faster your system is determined to be working properly, the more secure your dog is throughout summer.