Standard Containment and Return-to-Paddock

The eShepherd system uses two containment algorithms to manage animal movement within virtual paddocks: Standard Containment and Return to Paddock. Understanding how each works helps you manage your animals safely and effectively.

1. Standard Containment

When an animal approaches a virtual fence boundary, the neckband delivers an audio cue exactly at the drawn fence line.

Audio Cue

• The neckband plays a tone for up to 5 seconds.
• If the animal retreats during this time, the tone stops and no further stimulus is delivered.

If the Animal Does Not Respond

If the animal does not retreat during the audio cue:

1. The neckband delivers an aversive pulse.
2. A mandatory 5-second audio tone follows before the next pulse can be delivered.
3. This audio-pulse sequence repeats until the configured limit is reached.
4. Once this limit is reached, the animal is deemed to have escaped and the neckband ceases all stimuli until the animal returns to the inclusion zone on its own.

The neckband uses audio tones and mild electrical pulses only. It does not use vibration.

Virtual Fence Activation Scenarios

• Animal in the inclusion zone at activation: The neckband begins monitoring proximity to the boundary. Audio cues are delivered if the animal approaches the fence line.
• Animal in the exclusion zone at activation: The neckband remains inactive. The animal may re-enter the inclusion zone freely without receiving any stimulus. Standard containment resumes once the animal has returned.

2. Return to Paddock

This feature guides escaped animals back into the virtual paddock.

How It Works

Once an animal has escaped:

1. The neckband waits at least 2 minutes (can be longer) before delivering any further stimulus. This pause allows the animal to calm down.
2. If the animal remains stationary, the neckband stays inactive.
3. If the animal moves toward the nearest virtual fence segment, no stimulus is delivered.
4. If the animal moves further away, the neckband delivers audio cues and aversive pulses up to the configured limit.
5. If the animal changes direction back toward the fence at any point, stimulus stops immediately.

The neckband determines direction based on distance to the nearest virtual fence segment only. It does not track heading or orientation. This means the animal has 180 degrees of freedom to move back toward the fence; movement in the opposite direction triggers stimulus.

Between each set of pulse stimuli, a minimum rest period applies before the sequence can repeat. If the animal exhausts all configured stimulus sets, virtual fencing is disabled and an escape alert is sent. The system only resets once the animal has returned to the inclusion zone.

⚠️ Important: The Return to Paddock feature is initially activated by your eShepherd representative. After that, you can turn it on and off yourself through the web portal. The stimulus settings and rest period are configured in consultation with your eShepherd representative based on your animals' breed and behaviour.

When Return to Paddock is enabled

Return to Paddock is only enabled once your animals are well trained, which means more than 80% of the mob is above the 80% audio ratio mark. It is not turned on while animals are still in their training phase. As a guide, we recommend neckbands have been on the animals for at least a month, and animals that are not well trained will not have the feature activated.

Before enabling it for your property, your eShepherd representative will typically arrange a short Teams/video call to share their screen and go over how to use Return to Paddock and best practices. If you only plan to use the system for back-fencing and your animals are well trained and not escaping, you will never need to turn this on.

There is no extra cost to enable Return to Paddock. Once activated for your property, the change is sent to the neckbands on the next paddock (VP) move.

How to Enable or Disable Return to Paddock

⚠️ Important: This toggle is only available if Return to Paddock is enabled for your property. Availability is assessed case-by-case. Contact our customer support team to discuss enabling it for your property.

You can turn Return to Paddock on or off at two levels, depending on how many animals you want to update. Note that this is managed from the web app only — it is not available in the mobile (iOS/Android) app yet.

• A single animal: From the Animals page (Card - Detail view) or a Mob Details page, select the animal and use the Edit option to turn its Returning feature on or off.
• A whole mob at once: From the Mobs page, select one mob from the list and use the Returning option in the toolbar to update every neckband in that mob together, instead of one animal at a time.

⚠️ Important: Before switching Return to Paddock on, make sure all animals are within the new VP. Unlike a normal VP (where animals receive no stimulus until they enter the VP), with RTP on any animal outside the VP will receive stimulus unless it starts moving in the right direction — movement in the wrong direction triggers the audio/pulse pairs.

Either way, you'll be asked to confirm the change before it's sent. Once confirmed, a success message lets you know the change is on its way: if the animal currently has a VP, it'll receive the command soon; otherwise, it'll go out the next time you assign the animal a new VP.

Returning Icon States

The Returning icon shows whether returning is on or off, and updates automatically:

• Returning enabled: feature is on
• Returning disabled: feature is off
• Turning on returning: change in progress
• Turning off returning: change in progress

Hover over the icon to see its status (e.g. "Turning ON returning").

Recommended Use

Return to Paddock is designed to guide individual animals, or small groups that have escaped together, back to the paddock, and works well for this. Even when several animals break out together, the feature can guide them back over time, since a small subset of the herd still has a sense of where to go to rejoin the rest of the group.

Do not use this feature to move an entire group of animals to a new paddock. Without the context of the rest of the herd around them, a full group can become confused about the true boundary rather than being guided by it.

For the correct way to move animals between paddocks, refer to: How to Schedule a VP Move for a Mob.

Summary of Common Situations and Neckband Responses

v2.2, 07/2026

Updated on: 21/08/2026