THE CANINE BEHAVIOR SERIES By Kathy Diamond Davis Author and Trainer

Your back yard shares a chain link fence with the house behind you and both households have dogs. Perhaps the fence is at the side of your yard or it's a wood fence. Maybe it's even an electronic fence, with no physical barrier. Your dog or the dog on the other side of the fence-or both-get extremely excited at the sight, sound and scent through the fence. Should you be concerned?

Yes. Behavior through a fence that at first looks harmless or even positive can progress to serious problems.

What Can Happen?

Barking at the dog on the other side of the fence, like other barking in dogs, tends to escalate. Neighbors who have to listen to this eventually become unhappy. If you're lucky, they'll talk to you first. Since people with dogs so often react defensively to a neighbor's approach on this subject, your neighbors may take the complaint to authorities instead.

Be sure to thank neighbors who come to you first. It's not fun to be told you're responsible for a problem, but the neighbor has just handed you the opportunity to keep communication open and your own quality of life in that neighborhood much better than it becomes when neighbors resent each other.

Dogs sometimes start out just interested in the dog on the other side of the fence, and the behavior can look cute. They may run up and down the fence getting exercise. So what's the problem here?

The barrier between the dogs (even if it's an electronic fence) creates frustration. This frustration poses a high risk that behavior will escalate into more noise and more aggression. The dogs on one or both sides of the fence are at risk for becoming more aggressive toward animals and people on the other side of a fence. The commotion gets their adrenaline pumping, which can be addictive.

Wild behavior at the fence becomes more and more habitual. All of this, plus the fact that it's strongly hardwired instinctive behavior in the first place, is a recipe for disaster. Your dog can wind up doing something that seems to you entirely out of character for the dog, such as biting a child who leans over the fence or sticks fingers through.

Dogs are often injured as a result of fence fighting, too. Most dogs, if sufficiently motivated, can get under, over, around or through a fence. Your cute little dog acting feisty toward the big dog next door may suddenly be joined in your own yard by that dog, in no mood for games. While it's no guarantee of safety, preventing your dog from barking or running at the dog on the other side of the fence certainly reduces the risk of getting the dog over-stimulated.

Your dog might be the one to go through the fence, at which point you face not only the risk of injury to your dog, but legal responsibility for whatever happens. In fact, even if your dog stays in your yard, but hurts someone over the fence or someone who enters the yard, you can in some cases be held responsible.

For so many reasons, it pays to keep your dog from barking or running at a fence line. The place to start heading off this behavior is the point at which it starts, which may be simple curiosity on the part of the dog. If you start teaching your puppy or dog at this point to come to you instead of getting involved at the fence, that's a great first step.

Training that Helps

Teach your dog to come when called in the back yard. A fenced yard is a perfect place to work on this. At first you might use a safety line on the dog, especially when the fence situation has already become a problem. If the situation is really bad, have a safety line on the dog for every outing to the back yard until the training is reliable.

If you leave the dog alone in the yard, it will interfere with the training. You need to be out there to direct the dog's behavior, until and unless safe behavior becomes habit for the dog. Once the dog has started to bark and run wildly around, the training opportunity is missed.

Let's say your dog has begun the habit of barking and running the fence with the neighbor dog. Or perhaps instead of running, the dogs are trying to get at each other through the fence. How do you start working on this problem?

First, teach the dog to come when called, and have the dog on a safety line if needed to be totally sure the dog will leave off the interaction at the fence and come to you. You're even better off if you're starting this when the dog is only showing mild curiosity at the dog on the other side of the fence, but wherever things are, that's where you start!

Stand well away from the fence, toward the middle of the yard. At the very first sign of any interest your dog shows in the "problem" fence area, call your dog. Be prepared with great rewards.

 If you walk out into the yard and the dog on the other side of the fence barks or you know your dog is going to INSTANTLY be interested in that other dog, start even sooner. Call your dog at the first sound the other dog makes. Or have your dog walk outside WITH you, remaining at your side. Use a leash, of course, unless your dog is so responsive to you that it's not needed.

Your goal is to start the training at whatever point you can get your dog to succeed in turning attention to you and off the other dog. Most people need help from a trainer or class in order to develop real finesse in training a dog, so don't hesitate to get that kind of help. Just make sure the methods include rewards and are safe for your dog.

Physical Solutions

A physical barrier is sometimes the best solution. The idea is to keep your dogs from being able to even get to the fence they share with neighbor dogs. They could still bark at each other, but they can't get at each other through the fence, and your dog can't hurt a person at the fence when the dog can't get to the fence in the first place. This solution reduces the risk to your dog and improves your liability situation considerably.

Home-improvement stores sell a variety of relatively inexpensive solutions to this problem. A fence made with steel t-posts (which can be painted any color you like) and welded wire can be installed several feet back from your property fence line in a short time with few tools. It can be removed in a short time, too, when you move or just want to change the arrangement. This is only one possibility for an inexpensive secondary fence, and there are various ways to create gates, too.

It may be easiest and in some cases most safe to put the secondary fence up in such a way that when your dogs exit your house, they are in a fenced area that keeps them away from all the property lines. Teaching a dog to come when called is easier in a smaller area, and so is daily poop pick-up. The larger portion of your fenced yard can be used when you're going out with the dogs to supervise.
Another option some people use is an electronic fence set to keep your dog several feet back from the property fence. This is perhaps the best use of an electronic fence, but it still exposes your dog to side effects from electronic stimulation to the neck. A real fence is preferable. Only the higher-quality electronic fences that include guarantees and training should be considered safe for dogs, and a real fence made from materials you buy at the home-improvement store would be less expensive than those.
 
Good Management

Responsibility for a dog is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's not fun to suddenly have to jump up and go be responsible when you're resting, or busy doing something else, or tired and cranky. It's the job, though.

Think about what will make it easiest for you to consistently keep your dog out of fence-line trouble. Set up your yard and your daily routine so that this is taken care of before anyone has a need to complain, or anyone gets hurt. Your dog and your neighbors will both be happier!

Date Published: 5/31/2003 7:12:00 PM

    

Kathy Diamond Davis is the author of the book Therapy Dogs: Training Your Dog to Reach Others. Should the training articles available here or elsewhere not be effective, contact your veterinarian. Veterinarians not specializing in behavior can eliminate medical causes of behavior problems. If no medical cause is found, your veterinarian can refer you to a colleague who specializes in behavior or a local behaviorist.