suburban war stories

I've come to realize that living in suburbia, or rural-urbia if there is such a thing, there are certain things that come to be part of the collective experience. Putting in a dog fence is one of those things. Several of our neighbors have dogs. They all have invisible fences. They have all gone through the same experience...you'd think we would have learned by now.

First you call the fence company. They come out and give you a totally unrealistic quote to fence in part of your property. For 20% of the price you can buy the fence and do it yourself. You check by calling a neighbor who tells you they got the same awful quote and did the work themselves and by the way another neighbor happens to own a trencher. Call that neighbor. Oh yes, they got the same awful quote and did it themselves. Sure you can pick up the trencher.

Then comes laying out enough wire to fence in 1.5 acres. Tromping through woods, over rocks, through garden beds ?!?!?. Then comes the trenching part. Two people not required but it goes faster that way. One to trench one to bury. Hot, sweaty, mosquito-y. Then putting out all the flags. And we haven't even gotten to the training part, that takes 10-12 days. But I hear that it's a huge success. And of course once you're done with putting in the fence you're done.

We can now sit by the neighborhood fireside and share our own war story of climbing up a 30 degree grade of rock to lay invisible fencing (wondering why the dog would be that far but not wanting to wade into the thicket of wild raspberries and multiflora rose to avoid it) among other adventures of life in this small town.

tags: tobi, http://technorati.com/tag/dog rel="tag">dog, fence