Fence Jumper

    • Puppy

    Fence Jumper

    Hi! This is my first post on here! My husband and I have a 2 year old Border Collie mix named Zoe, we also have a year and a half year old Peek-a-Poo named Dora. We have had Zoe since she was 6 weeks old. We got her from the humnae society after they had found her and her sister on the side of the road when they were 2 weeks old.
    We have had to battle many problems with Zoe since we got her, but we have chalked most of them up to the fact that the humane society determined her and her sister were severly abused and never properly weened from their mother. She still growls and shows her teeth when we try to put her leash on her, but we are dealing wtih that slowly but surley.
    Her latest problem that has us very concerned is she has started jumping the fence in our yard. At first she did it once or twice when it thundered stormed. She has always been afraid of storms, she always shakes and gets very nervous when it storms. She even sleeps above our heads when it storms at night to be closer to us. But this week, she has been jumping the fence when it bright and sunny out. I am afraid to leave her all day by herself because she will jump the fence and get hurt in the street or picked up by animal control. We just moved into this house and at our old house she never once tried to jump the fence there. The fence at our new house is taller then our old one. We think she learned how to do it after watching our neighbor's dog jump the fence. If anyone has any idea of what we can do to remedy this problem we would greatly appreciate it!
    Thanks!
    • Silver
    I've got no experience with fence jumpers because I've never had one, but please don't leave her outside when you're not home and don't have her outside unsupervised at all - that's the immediate fix to the problem.
     
    How tall is your fence?  Is she scaling it or jumping over it?
    • Puppy
    The fence is about 4 1/2- 5 ft tall. We don't know if she is scalling it or jumping it because she seems to be doing it when we are inside doing other things.
    • Gold Top Dog
    Every dog I own respects a barrier, EXCEPT Sheba.  If it's between her and Mom, well, she's going over it.  I don't care how tall it is, what it's made of, she WILL find a way over it to get to me.  With Sheba, all I can really do is manage the problem, by not leaving her out without me unless she's on a runner.
    • Gold Top Dog
    We humans move from one house to another and think it's just grand, a new place to live!!! Dogs don't always agree with us.  Even though your dog's "pack" is with her, the location has changed, and that can be very stressful.  The fence jumping may be a response to the move, she feels unsettled.  The only sure fire solution is to increase the height of the fence to where she cannot possibly jump it.  As for her learning it from a neighbor's dog, I don't know about that, it sounds like if your dog wants to get over the fence, and is physically able, she's going to do it without much instruction. 

    It may help if you take her for a very long walk in the morning and again in the evening.  That would take care of some the anxiety that may be bothering her after the move, and it will make her familiar with her new surroundings that she needs to now call "home." 


    • Gold Top Dog
    I'd love to see the advice given on this one.
     
    Ash can clear a 6 ft fence and make it look like it's as easy as a hop. She goes to my parents house during the day and they just re-did their entire fence and for her benefit, and ours, they made the fence 6 feet (we didn't find out she could jump that high until after the fence was done). Sure enough, after the fence was done, she jumped it.
    • Puppy
    Well, I think we found a solution to our problem. After searching all night Wednesday and Thursday monring, I found a product on Wal-Mart's website. It's called Zone Barriers and it's made by a company called Innotek. The Zone barrier is a fairly new product apparently. But I called all the wal-marts in our area and all of them told me the product was only carried online. Well I couldn't wait until next week to get it because we are going out of town Saturday for the day and Zoe doesn't do well being left indoors all day. I finally called a local Petland store about 20mins from our house and they had the product!
    But the Zone is a white disk that reminds me of a smoke detector you would put in your home. It uses batteries so it can be put anywhere! You can set it to protect a diameter of 2 ft to up to 12 ft. It doesn't say anywhere that you can't put it outside. But you set the disk for the diameter you want and then you put a collar that is similar to the electric fence collars on the dog. Whenever the dog gets within the diameter you set the collar starts beeping and gives a slightly uncomfortable stimulation to the dog. They recomend using the zone to keep dogs away from trash cans, baby cribs, furniture, even doorways to entire rooms where you don't want the dog to go. You can also put it by your front door to keep dogs from jumping on people as they come in. But we put the collar on Zoe this morning and I put the disk in a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet! It still worked in from inside the ziplock bag! Zoe won't go anywhere near the gate where she was jumping! It's great! Although she isn't too happy with myself or my husband right now, hopefully this will help cure the problem. We'll see how it works in the long run. But so far twice this morning I have heard her yelping and running back up to the front of the yard and trying to get the collar off. So I know it's working!
    You can buy the disk by itself or the collars so you can use the zone in a multiple dog household. You can also set each zone disk to an A or B setting so if one dog is allowed somewhere but another isn't then it will do that. We are seriously thinking about buying a few more over the next few months for our inside peek-a-poo. She likes to jump on the kitchen table when we aren't looking and she is terrible about barking at the door and trying to run out when I leave the house. The kit is only $69.00 and worth every penny so far!
    I'll let you all know how it works in a few days! But so far so good! Thanks to everyone for their advice!