Oogy_ The Dog Only a Family Could Love - Larry Levin [39]
To this day, if somebody cannot find something, Jennifer will suggest taking the search outside to see if Oogy has been working on it. The case for her cell phone has teeth marks in it. So do my favorite baseball cap and my new loafers. There is a picture of Dan and Oogy in the family room in an aluminum frame that has Oogy bite marks on it in the top left corner. I could not have thought that up, but it is not a bad marketing idea: customized frames with bite marks on them for people to use for pictures of their dogs. Oogy holds the copyright.
Eventually, as Diane had promised us, for the most part Oogy’s destructive forays ceased. There would always be the purloined piece of cheese, the gravy-smeared foil under the dining room table, but, as though exorcised, whatever it had been that drove him to his small frenzies disappeared as Oogy matured, and there came a time when we no longer had to worry what awaited us each time we returned home.
But we still use the bungee cords on the refrigerator.
CHAPTER 7
Surprises
Since it would be good for Oogy’s health to be able to run around in the yard and would keep him from chasing after people in the street, we decided to have a new electronic fence installed. The one in place when we had moved in had long since corroded into dust. The first company I called asked me what Oogy’s breed was. When I told the agent with whom I was dealing that Oogy was a pit bull, she told me that her company would not install an electronic fence. It was their policy; they were afraid that if a pit bull got through one of their fences and attacked someone, they might be sued. The second company I called said that his breed would not be a problem.
An electronic fence is set up by inserting wire around the perimeter of the property, which is then marked by a series of small plastic flags. A charge runs along the wire controlled by a box attached to the house. Two conductive electrodes in a special collar rest against the dog’s neck. If he gets too close to the fence, he will hear a buzzing sound intended to warn him away; if he continues, he will receive a shock. I had to know what the experience felt like, so I held the collar in my hand and walked to the fence. It was as though I had stuck my finger into a live lamp socket.
Once the fence had been installed, it was time to train Oogy. I was shown how to lead him up to it until he heard the buzzing sound, the warning that he was approaching the perimeter. The first time we did this, Oogy did not know that there was any significance to the sound, and I had to let him get shocked. The idea was that he would associate the warning sound with getting a jolt of electricity. After that first experience, I repeatedly led Oogy up toward the fence until he heard the cautionary sound, then immediately pulled him back and away from the fence line so that he learned to associate the sound with the limits of his domain.
However, I encountered an unexpected problem with training Oogy. Because he has only one ear, he cannot triangulate sound. As a result, he appeared to be confused about where the warning sound was coming from. It seemed likely to me that because he could not tell where the sound was coming from, it might not act as a deterrent for him; that he might go forward when he heard the warning sound, not back away. Since I did not want to subject him to repeated shocks, I called the company that had installed the fence and explained my concern. They sent over a technician who assessed the situation and suggested that I sight-train Oogy. I would pull him up close to the fence line and wave one of the little blue flags when the warning sounded