Battle over invisible pet fences: Don't Startle me Bro

Unseen Fences Upset the Unsuspecting
Chevy Chase Enclave Might Regulate Electronic Pet Barriers

To some suburbanites, good fences don't make such good neighbors when you can't see them.

That's the issue facing the Town Council of Somerset, an incorporated enclave within Chevy Chase, which will consider next month regulating the placement of invisible electronic dog fences. The devices confine pets to their home turf with a low-wattage cable buried along the perimeter of a yard.

The proposal would require setbacks of at least three feet from sidewalks and 14 feet from curbs without sidewalks.

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The community is just one of several in the country that have taken regulatory notice of the systems, which are becoming more common in tightly packed suburban neighborhoods. Albuquerque, for example, has banned them, and Louisville allows them only for dogs that have been spayed or neutered.

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It was frightening for Somerset resident Alison Fortier, who was walking her Labrador retriever along Dorset Avenue last year when two barking dogs suddenly came running from behind a nearby house. With no owner, chain or fence in sight, the animals charged toward Fortier with, as far as she could see, nothing to stop them.

The dogs pulled up short, right at the edge of the sidewalk, Fortier said. But not before sparking a barking lunge from her lab that nearly pulled Fortier off her feet.

Washington Post