Spring Feather
Well-Known Member
Bear with me; there is a question at the end of this. I'll set the scene for you to give you a bit more info on my set up.
I have 6 dogs, except for one little collie they are all big dogs. All day long they have free access to wander about our farm and do as they please, although they're almost always wherever I am. At night times I bring them into my back garden. I have a large dog flap so they have free access to come into their dog room or stay outside, whatever they chose to do. My back garden is not large, maybe a third of an acre at most. It is fenced with 6ft high no-climb fencing all round. There are some small trees, mainly fruit trees which are all fairly close to the fence. We have predators/large critters who live around here which my dogs are most competent at clearing off the farm when they are out and about. However, due to past events with my dogs having run ins with wolves overnight I decided to fence an area behind my farmhouse as I did not want to have to be getting up in the night to make sure all was well and the dogs returned unscathed.
So anyway this fence as I've said is 6ft tall and all has worked perfectly for many years. One of my dogs is a young dog, she's almost 2 years old and is large. Because she is still immature she is much more flexible than my older dogs of her breed type and she has been able to leave the back garden and chase whatever she thinks shouldn't be near the house, and after she's finished she just jumps back into the back garden. This has been going on for a couple of months; helped mainly by the amount of snow we have had this winter. I eventually became a bit fed up with this last week as my other dogs become quite annoyed with her and have had a few pops at her on her return, so, as I don't want any real poop to hit the fan, I decided to heighten the fence. So it's now almost 7ft tall however the dog was still able to jump out. The snow has dropped a lot and she isn't making the jump where she usually does so easily now BUT she was still getting out. I traced her prints and saw that she had changed where she was getting out. And it was near a damson tree. It's on a steep slope at that point and I couldn't quite get my head around how she was able to do it, so I watched her one evening and to my surprise I saw her climbing the tree to about 6ft high and then she just hopped over the fence.
So my question to you is this; does anyone have any idea on how to stop this happening? I do not want to cut down any trees as I have a decent sized horse farm with people coming and going and it's the only privacy we really have. The fencing already has begun to look like Fort Knox and I'm not sure I want a 10ft fence all around. I wouldn't use electric fencing as her breed type is very sensitive to anaesthetic/shocks etc. The one thing I do have going for me is that she is nervous of things above her ie our flag waving bothers her, as does vultures in the sky etc. So can anyone think of anything (please don't say bunting!) that I could possibly use as a deterrent but without making the area look like some tinkers paradise? Thank you.
I have 6 dogs, except for one little collie they are all big dogs. All day long they have free access to wander about our farm and do as they please, although they're almost always wherever I am. At night times I bring them into my back garden. I have a large dog flap so they have free access to come into their dog room or stay outside, whatever they chose to do. My back garden is not large, maybe a third of an acre at most. It is fenced with 6ft high no-climb fencing all round. There are some small trees, mainly fruit trees which are all fairly close to the fence. We have predators/large critters who live around here which my dogs are most competent at clearing off the farm when they are out and about. However, due to past events with my dogs having run ins with wolves overnight I decided to fence an area behind my farmhouse as I did not want to have to be getting up in the night to make sure all was well and the dogs returned unscathed.
So anyway this fence as I've said is 6ft tall and all has worked perfectly for many years. One of my dogs is a young dog, she's almost 2 years old and is large. Because she is still immature she is much more flexible than my older dogs of her breed type and she has been able to leave the back garden and chase whatever she thinks shouldn't be near the house, and after she's finished she just jumps back into the back garden. This has been going on for a couple of months; helped mainly by the amount of snow we have had this winter. I eventually became a bit fed up with this last week as my other dogs become quite annoyed with her and have had a few pops at her on her return, so, as I don't want any real poop to hit the fan, I decided to heighten the fence. So it's now almost 7ft tall however the dog was still able to jump out. The snow has dropped a lot and she isn't making the jump where she usually does so easily now BUT she was still getting out. I traced her prints and saw that she had changed where she was getting out. And it was near a damson tree. It's on a steep slope at that point and I couldn't quite get my head around how she was able to do it, so I watched her one evening and to my surprise I saw her climbing the tree to about 6ft high and then she just hopped over the fence.
So my question to you is this; does anyone have any idea on how to stop this happening? I do not want to cut down any trees as I have a decent sized horse farm with people coming and going and it's the only privacy we really have. The fencing already has begun to look like Fort Knox and I'm not sure I want a 10ft fence all around. I wouldn't use electric fencing as her breed type is very sensitive to anaesthetic/shocks etc. The one thing I do have going for me is that she is nervous of things above her ie our flag waving bothers her, as does vultures in the sky etc. So can anyone think of anything (please don't say bunting!) that I could possibly use as a deterrent but without making the area look like some tinkers paradise? Thank you.
