I just bought one of those shock collar fences. Two questions. And I live in a very rural area.

Do I really need to bury the wire for a 5 acre area? Or can I just lay it on the ground?

And do I really need to go through the training steps in the manual?

Thought please.

Bury the wire. Put up survey flags along the border about two feet in from wire. Dog on leash with boundary collar on. Walk around perimeter leading dog. Stop at each flag and show it to dog. While dog looks, shake the flag. Repeat for each flag and each dog. Soon, the dogs will adapt and flags can come in. Once pack is trained you can introduce new dogs to pack and fence easily. Put on boundary collar and put them out. The pack will train the new dog.

We have DogWatch fence. Works great. Fixin to install second DogWatch fence at the lake place.

Most of my lot is very thick scrub brush though and I don't fell like grubbing a 3 inch deep path for 1500 feet of wire. Can I just run it along the top of the ground?

Try it and tell us.

My BIL has one of the wireless fences - not sure which one - but his covers roughly an acre - maybe a little more (about a 250' diameter). I think they make more expensive ones - if I remember right his was middle of the road price wise. It seems to work very well.

It won't last if the wire is exposed. On the contrary, buried it is almost indestructible. There are other sensitivity issues too. The collars are calibrated to a buried wire. Rent a middle buster and cut a slot around the perimeter. You need to clean up that area anyhow.

X10... above ground falls to bits

I considered the underground wire but I also want to keep coyotes out so I put in a fence with cattle panels and so far so good. but nothing is foolproof in that regard.