Dog will not leave yard for walk

Question
We have a 10 month old Black Lab. When we brought her home at age 3 months we would take her on walks everyday and she loved them. Our home has an invisible fence that we have trained her with in the last two months. She is now frightened to go on a walk. I make sure she knows we are changing collars and getting her walking leash. The excitement is there when I say let's go for a walk, but once we get outside she will just lay down. I have tried to get her to go toward the street with a treat once and that did not work. Short of picking her up and carrying her to the street to show her that it is ok, I don't know what to do.

Answer
I believe that your dog has been terribly frightened by the e-fence (after all, it is a shock, and that's painful, no matter what the salespeople tell you), and the first thing that I would do is to get rid of it.  If you keep it, you will probably never solve this fear problem.  I never recommend e-fences for reasons such as this, and in fact I am a member of the No Shock Collar Coalition because I have seen devastating effects from these fences on many dogs.  For now, you will have to rebuild her trust that her own back yard will not hurt her.  Step one - get rid of the fence.  Step two - start associating great things with the yard.  Food, toys, play with you.  Do NOT drag her, but I think it's fine if you DO carry her so that she can experience crossing the line without getting shocked, but that will require that you never allow a shock to happen again or she will continue to be fearful.  She believes that the *whole yard* is dangerous, not just the fence line, which is why she is "learned helpless" and just lies down - she's trying to prevent the shock and that's all she knows to do that reliably results in safety.  Use extremely high value treats (real meat, such as liverwurst, roast beef with garlic, turkey with cheese sauce, etc.) to get her to follow you (even one step at first, and that should result in copious feeding!).  Eventually, if you don't break her trust again, you should be successful.  Investigate this site: www.bestfriendfence.com as an alternative to e-fence.  And, please read: http://www.hollysden.com/say-no-to-shock-collars.htm  The trainer who wrote that page is now retired, but left the page up because she felt so strongly against these devices.  I do, too, and now you see why.  Please, once you get your dog back to normal, please tell others your story.  Maybe we can prevent this, and worse, from happening to other dogs.  Every dog we have teaches us valuable lessons, and your Lab is teaching you this one!  The lesson is: don't use shock collars, don't leave your dog unattended outdoors, and teach your pup a reliable recall (http://www.amazon.com/Really-Reliable-Recall-Leslie-Nelson/dp/B000Q35RZY).