If it can’t actually hold your dogs in your yard, or keep trouble out, a fence can do more harm than good. It makes you feel like you have a fence, so you let your guard down. In one of my classes, a student with an aggressive dog said that they had a fenced yard. It turns out there is no gate, just a big gaping hole where the dog can get out!
I snapped this photo on a walk with Peanut in Seattle. There are two problems with this fence. The obvious one is the big hole where panels are missing and the dog can get out or other dogs or children can come in. The other is the height! If Peanut wanted to, he could easily jump over this fence.
If your dog gets out of your yard, don’t get mad at the dog. Fix the fence! For short fences, either build a taller fence or put a roll-bar at the top, so it’s harder for the dog to get a grip. For holes, of course, put something in there, like more boards. For diggers, you’ll need to bury chicken wire from the fence down, about 1-2 feet will do in most cases.
p.s. Electric fences aren’t fences, either.
For some ideas on how to make your fence big and strong, click here or here.
Written by Grisha Stewart, Ahimsa Dog Training, Seattle Tweet This Post!
 RSS feed
|
[
May 11th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Great suggestions and definitely things people need to think about.
One thing people forget is that not only should the fence keep your dog in, it should keep other dogs and animals out!
Last year when I was living in Kansas, I’d often go horseback riding and take 4 of my friend’s dogs with me off-leash. (Rural Kansas, and the dogs have a pretty solid recall.)
There was one property down the road, though, that had electric fence for their 2 German Shepards. It kept their dogs in, but it didn’t stop other dogs from coming in as well. They didn’t want dogs coming on to their property, but had no fence to keep animals out. Eventually, we just stopped riding down that road because it was too big of a hassle to keep the dogs from running over to say Hi.
Mary H.