Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Aug 15/01) - Otis the Chinese black pug has pulled its last disappearing act.

Sixteen-year-old Bruce Christensen has come up with an electrifying new way to keep his dog in the yard.

On the weekend, Christensen and his friends tested a prototype collar that will shock the dog anytime it crosses over an electrical trip wire strung around the perimeter of the yard.

"It will continue to zap them when they're outside the wire for about five minutes until after the battery runs out," explains Christensen, a St. Patrick student and local DJ.

In an experiment Sunday, the wire only ran around a square patch of lawn about the same area as a phone booth.

But by the end of the week, Christensen plans to have the yard rigged up.

"It's to teach them to stay in the yard and it's already worked," he says.

"The dog will not go near that area where the flags are."

The flags delineate the boundaries of the trip wire, and the idea is if the dog can be taught to avoid going near the boundary, it won't even think about running off.

Christensen says he had been thinking about how to keep little Otis in the yard for quit some time now.

"It's a year old and it's escaped like 30 times," Christensen says.

"As soon as the door opens it's, like, gone. He doesn't listen very well and he runs really fast so you can't catch him."

He says the idea of a containment area came to him a while ago, but it wasn't until last week he got serious. He and a few of his friends bought about $20 of supplies at yard sales and Wal-Mart, and hooked it all up to a 12-volt adapter they pulled out of the dump.

"I'm a DJ, so I know how to fix amps and everything," he said.

"I know what to do with my fuses, and my mom is a computer technician, so she knows how to fix electronics really well. My mom has taught me how to do this sort of stuff."

Although the idea would appear to have real money-making potential, Yellowknife's many wandering dogs need not worry.

Christensen says for now, at least, he isn't planning on going commercial.