# Escaping St. Bernard



## llysmk (May 30, 2014)

Hi all-

Even though I'm new to these forums, I was wondering if you all could lend a hand to a dogmom who can't seem to stop crying.

*Here's the situation I'm dealing with now:*
We have a medium sized back yard, a mixture of grass, cement sidewalk, and deck. Three quarters of the back yard is fenced with 4' white picket fencing, the other "long" side of the yard is lined completely with thick hedge. Because hedge can grow irregularly, there are some gaps in our hedge that we've solved by placing snow fence or metal deer fencing with stakes throughout. It's been a good deterrent for our boxer/lab mix (about 4.5 years), and our St. Bernard / rough collie mix (just turned 2)... until now.

*Fast forward to today:*
This afternoon, a mom and 2 kids were walking their poodle on the sidewalk closest to our back yard, on the hedge side. There is 1 house between ours and the end of the block. I had let my dogs outside on their own, as I don't leave them out unchaperoned for more than 5 minutes. Apparently during this brief time, the family's poodle that was walking alongside our block saw my two dogs, and began growling and barking at them. My boxer/lab mix is a homebody, and will very rarely engage other dogs unless they're on our property. Our St. Bernard, however, is the friendliest goofball ever and loves meeting new friends. I guess she mistook the poodle's barking as an invitation to become best friends, because she burst her way over the snow fence, completely bending some metal fence and scratching herself up on branches, just to see this poodle.

Needless to say, the family was less than pleased to deal with such a large dog (even though she's friendly), and threatened to call the Humane Society if I "couldn't control my dog." This close call made me realize that our feeble attempts to patch a bigger problem aren't cutting it. The major downside is, we can't afford an $8,000 6' fence to surround our back yard. So what I'm asking you all is, is there any other option I haven't considered, or any training technique that would help?

*Things we've already tried, or other notes to make:*
-Electrified fence.
-Obedience training (suggestion of Humane Society).
-She is very active. She not only goes to the barn with me (I work at a horse stable) but we also take her on ~2 mile walks per day.

Any help is greatly appreciated! I don't want to lose my furry friend


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

Are there rules about how your fence needs to look? Probably not since you mention snow fence but just to check. A cheap(ish) way to do it would be to get 6-foot farm fence stakes and horse fencing. . .it wouldn't look terrific but not too ugly either. It would be considerably cheaper than $8000 but it'll still be at least $500-$1000 (depending how big of an area you fence). 

You can make a smaller fenced area just for unsupervised potty breaks. 

You can tie her within the yard, of course making sure the chain/cable isn't long enough for her to jump the fence and hang herself.

You can take her outside only on leash. It'll be a pain but better than getting bothered by animal control or giving her up.


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## PatriciafromCO (Oct 7, 2012)

is it possible you could do the one side of the yard that is the direct line to public areas ?


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## llysmk (May 30, 2014)

Thank you guys for your ideas and advice!

@Willowy I actually hadn't even thought of creating a smaller area for when I can't be outside with her (during rainstorms, etc.) I like the idea of horse fencing / something a bit more permanent than just haphazardly providing metal fence / snow fence wherever necessary, so I'll talk with my husband about that. Tying her in the yard is less ideal, since we have a raised deck and I wouldn't put it past her to get tangled up around the support beams.

@PatriciafromCO, we have considered just getting that side of the yard (hedge side) fenced, but because the hedge is equally on our property and the next door neighbors', we would need to have most of it removed for the fence to line up with the side of the house. 

Thank you for your input!!


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

A fence like this (photo below) is a very sturdy, easy to build yourself and fairly cheap fence that doesn't look too haphazard. If you put it up close to the hedge, the branches will grow through it.


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## PatriciafromCO (Oct 7, 2012)

Shell is that your fence ? "I like it "


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## Amaryllis (Dec 28, 2011)

llysmk said:


> Thank you guys for your ideas and advice!
> 
> @Willowy I actually hadn't even thought of creating a smaller area* for when I can't be outside with her (during rainstorms, etc.)* I like the idea of horse fencing / something a bit more permanent than just haphazardly providing metal fence / snow fence wherever necessary, so I'll talk with my husband about that. Tying her in the yard is less ideal, since we have a raised deck and I wouldn't put it past her to get tangled up around the support beams.
> 
> ...


Is she outside for 5 minutes unattended, or is she living outside?

Millions of urban dog owners never let their dogs outside alone, until you get the fence situation fixed, she should only go outside with you at the other end of a leash.


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

PatriciafromCO said:


> Shell is that your fence ? "I like it "


Not my fence, I did something similar though along the back of my property because previous neighbor's had a dog that kept jumping into my yard. It can even be done taller than 6 feet because you can use 2, 4 ft tall rolls of woven wire to make it 8 feet tall. Note that many urban and suburban areas though have zoning regulation limiting fences to 6 ft in residential areas. But it is usually fine in agricultural zoned areas or rural towns.


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## llysmk (May 30, 2014)

Amaryllis said:


> Is she outside for 5 minutes unattended, or is she living outside?
> 
> Millions of urban dog owners never let their dogs outside alone, until you get the fence situation fixed, she should only go outside with you at the other end of a leash.


She is an indoor dog, and normally I do supervise them while they're outside, it's just since they were going out so briefly this time I figured I didn't need to be out there with them. I took a gamble, and it blew up in my face 



Shell said:


> A fence like this (photo below) is a very sturdy, easy to build yourself and fairly cheap fence that doesn't look too haphazard. If you put it up close to the hedge, the branches will grow through it.


Wow! That's awesome! I'll see what it'd take for us to create that in our back yard. Thanks for the idea!


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## Remaru (Mar 16, 2014)

Shell said:


> A fence like this (photo below) is a very sturdy, easy to build yourself and fairly cheap fence that doesn't look too haphazard. If you put it up close to the hedge, the branches will grow through it.


I love this! We have been trying to figure out a fencing idea for a dog run area (for the dog's potty area) and I think this might be a good solution for that. We were going back and forth on chain link and metal posts as we already have two of the metal posts in the ground we would just need to put in a couple more to create a path and put up the fencing. I think we may look at putting it along our back fence as well. Our fences are shared and technically we are not responsible for the two back fences, our neighbors are but the fences are getting a little iffy. It would be nice to put something up that would offer more protection.


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## Shell (Oct 19, 2009)

Remaru said:


> I love this! We have been trying to figure out a fencing idea for a dog run area (for the dog's potty area) and I think this might be a good solution for that. We were going back and forth on chain link and metal posts as we already have two of the metal posts in the ground we would just need to put in a couple more to create a path and put up the fencing. I think we may look at putting it along our back fence as well. Our fences are shared and technically we are not responsible for the two back fences, our neighbors are but the fences are getting a little iffy. It would be nice to put something up that would offer more protection.


You can google "woven wire fence on wood posts" and "farm fence on wood posts" to look at different images of the various ways to do a fence like that.

A major advantage for the DIYer is that woven wire is generally a lot easier to work with than chain link fencing. I put up a traditional 4 ft chain link fence by myself and it was HARD work. I put up a 50 ft length of woven wire fencing and it was much less physical work. Cheaper too since the price of metal has gone up quite a lot so the wood framing tends to be cheaper than the equivalent height and length of chain link fencing with metal poles. Around $4-6/linear foot vs $10-12/LF for chain link.


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## Kayla_Nicole (Dec 19, 2012)

I have also seen people who use regular 6 foot fence posts, and attached wooden pallets to them or slip them down over the posts. Also not super pretty, but cheap. 

Here are a couple of examples:
http://summerville-novascotia.com/PalletFence/

http://realeyeshomestead.com/build-pallet-fence/


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