How this Retriever Found Over an Acre of Freedom: Emma's Story

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Meet Emma!

Meet Emma! This sweet pup belongs to the Nazor family  of Blue Hill, Maine. Her favorite activities include eating, eating, eating and retrieving… in that order! This yellow lab is the hungriest gal of them all, eating everything and anything – some would think her stomach is a never-ending pit. Anything she doesn’t see as food, she enjoys retrieving! She will fetch and rush back with quite large loads and has been doing a great job learning to drop things at her dog dad Hugh’s feet, rather than playing keep-away. As you might expect, Emma’s go-to toys are the ones that you put treats inside. She also loves a good game of tug-of-war, played with her doggie boyfriend or any human.

Emma’s “boyfriend” is a three-legged mix owned by the Nazor’s daughter, who lives near Boston. Visits—even on FaceTime—are happy times. When they are together, they romp until they’re so exhausted that they need to sleep in order to recover from their rambunctious playdates.

Being very friendly, Emma loves all dogs and people! She can hardly hold in her excitement when she sees another fur-friend in the distance. Before SpotOn Fence, Emma would rush to greet any and all dogs that walked by. Living in a rural area where dogs are almost always being walked by their owners, getting Emma to stay in the yard was rather challenging.

Now that Emma is trained to the SpotOn system, she has learned to greet passing doggos from afar. She will bark as a way to say “hello” and “I’m here!” When she gets particularly excited, she may run up to the area where she hears the warning sound, but she never crosses the boundary.

Hugh was very pleased to make use of the SpotOn Fence’s custom mapping feature. They were able to set up a containment area that excludes a section extending 50 feet back from a road at one end of the property and 10 feet back from a marsh at the other end. Her owner also finds it very convenient to be able to modify Emma’s boundary if work is being done on part of their property. They currently live on a little more than an acre of land in which they have slowly built their home, a garage, and a guesthouse. When work on one of the secondary buildings is ongoing, Hugh simply changes her boundary from his phone and Emma, being trained to the tones, is able to quickly adjust to the change! 

The collar turned out to be a particularly good fit for their property because of trees and marsh as well as other plantings. The outline of Emma’s area runs through tree roots, large rocks and a very wet marsh. Being able to set the boundaries right where they wanted them (not to mention, changing the boundaries on a whim!) would not have been possible with a wire system. 

With SpotOn, Emma now enjoys the freedom of her yard while her owners get the peace of mind that she is safe and not getting into any trouble. The highlight of her day is getting to go outside and explore the yard. If she wants to go out and Hugh’s wife says “you need your collar,” she will run to where her collar is charging and bark, unless one of them beats her to it. Clearly, she is a very smart dog who understands many words!

When she wants someone to play with her, she will charge out like a dart and run around in circles around you. That is the cue to go out and throw her big, heavy stick as far as possible to give her the exercise she needs. 

Being the goofball that she is, she will lie flat on her belly with all four legs stretched straight out. Funny enough, she will take nearly the same position on her back as well, in her sleep! 

Emma is quite the character and is very smart and observant when it comes to her favorite things – like food! She has her feeding schedule memorized. Willing to do just about anything to get fed, she will walk on her hind legs to take a treat held up high for her. No matter where she is, she eats just about anything that she can. While in the yard, she frequently steals lettuce from the garden! In the fall, she will even jump up to get apples or peaches off of the trees – with no attempt to even try to be sneaky about it!  

Emma has many adventures to look forward to this summer. Her owners love to take her ashore on various islands when they are on the boat. Being a water dog, she absolutely loves to swim. Though not a big fan of being confined to the boat, she tolerates it, knowing that the destination will be well worth it! 

Is your SpotOn dog free to roam? Share their story with us here!