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Expert
Posts: 1549
  
Location: Southwest Louisiana | I fix all of my animals, and am in the process of even fixing the dozen or so barn cats as I can catch them since no one wants them. The dog had to be fixed within 2 weeks of me taking him per the rescue's guidelines. If I didn't care about his welfare, I wouldn't care if he ran off. When he's here, my kids literally can't walk freely in the yard because the dog stands as close to them as possible, as most GPs do. Both of the dogs are protective of the kids and even over the darn cats. Even towards other people.
My brother came over one day and the dogs were perfectly fine with him, until he started roughing around with the pygmy goat. The goat is a little butt and rears towards my brother (and only my brother since that's how he plays with him) and when they started playing, the dogs both walked up to them. My female, Comet, just casually pushed her way in between my brother and the goat and stood there. Zeus stood by watching also. Nothing threatening, but it's like they were saying "step away from our goat".
The same with the neighbor's dog. She comes over with her dog often, so my dogs get along fine with her dog. Until the neighbor's dog was licking my son's hand (i'm sure he had something sticky or gross - he's 8) and my son was kind of shrieking and laughing. My dogs took that as a threat so they ran up and "pushed" the neighbor dog away, with their hair standing up, and just stood there next to my son.
So I think Zeus knows who his family is, he just likes to wander and isn't picky on where he sleeps or what human is around. He was chained up about half of his young life, so I'm thinking being contained is something he is greatly opposed to after living like that. It's almost like he panicks when he is put into a smaller pen and realizes he's locked in. He works and works until he gets out. A larger area isn't so bad, until he decides it's time to take a walk. It's worse when I hear coyotes at night. Next thing I know, I hear Zeus barking out in the woods, out of the fence, going after the coyotes. This weekend I'm going pick up some electric fence and plastic extenders to go around the top, bottom and possibly the middle of the fence. Since he climbs right over the top, hopefully this will stop him.
Thanks for the suggestions.
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 Expert
Posts: 1432
Location: Never in one place long | Most of our property has actual fencing (square cell, but the parts that don't, we have an underground fence and the dog wears a collar. I haven't seen any dog push their luck with these fences, once you train them on the boundaries, they seem to not ever go near it. This might be an idea but sounds like you have a HUGE place so might not be realistic. I'm sorry to hear you're having this much trouble. It was VERY kind of you to take this dog in and very responsible that you have them both fixed. :) bless you! My friend has a dog that crosses a MAJOR hwy everyday.. has done it for year and goes to her neighbors house to play with them and their dog! Nothing she does stops him, I guess if your dog is doing the same and the neighbor wants to keep him, maybe that's best if he's chosen them? Maybe talk to them and see. | |
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 Own It and Move On
Location: The edge of no where | I'm betting the hot fence works. Poor guy had such a tough start on life that I bet he's dreads confinement. They sound like great dogs and bless you for taking him in. I don't know what your place is like, but is it a huge deal if you talk to your neighbor and maybe he just roams a bit? Maybe she likes hanging out with him occasionally? Since he's fixed, he might need a bit more time to really lock in on 'home'. Does he go far? | |
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