The Other dog going strange...? Help!

[Oskar der Drachen]

I have a Fox terrier cross. She is a real baggage and always has been. She is older 13 years old now, and going slightly blind to boot.

She act as if everything is not exactly the way she wants it right now, she will expend any amount of effort to make it that way. She breaks out of the yard, she breaks into and out of the house by scratching at the cat door till the catch rotates. She has started to break not only out of the back yard, not sure how, but to break out of the front yard to roam as well.

I am really getting to wits end because she is leading Bear into bad habits. She will break out and then just hang around tempting the others into sin, and Bear is getting to the size where sin could be considerable.

Armouring the yard to keep a small Foxie in would be hugely expensive, even more so than for a large dog because the bottoms of all the fences would have to be concreted or bricked as well. I have secured the yard against simple breakout, but in the face of determined effort by a small digging dog with hours on her mind? Jeeez

I'm ready to put the little bitch in a crate herself during the day. I tried to keep her in the house and not in the back yard, but she broke OUT of the house to be in the yard through the cat door. She is fully capable of being in the house during the day, she just doesn't WANT to be in the house during the day. The neighbors are starting to return her to the yard.

Bear and Fred are staying in the yard because it simply hasn't occurred to them that they could be outside it if they wanted to be. Vixen stayed in the yard when she could do what she wanted to when she wanted to do it. I think she breaks out of the main yard when she is miffed. "I'll show YOU for making me stay outside!"

The two larger dogs are going to see her make a break for it one of these days, and click on to what a grand game THAT is. If that happens I'm sunk. I am sitting at work writing this not knowing where the dogs are, inside or outside the fences.

I was looking after a Cocker Spaniel once that was a Houdini. I had to put up a high chain link fence with triple, pinned latches in the only gate and sink the bottom of all the chain link in concrete. I had to put netting over all the corners of the chain link bars because the little hellspawn would climb up the inside corners.

I'll euthanize the bitch before I'll go to those lengths in this MUCH larger yard.

Help Please?

[KentuckyGSDLover]

A small kennel with fencing in an apron underground the perimeter is what I plan to do for Rey when I want to let her out when I can't attend to her. They call it "coyote-proof" fence where I live but it works great for digging dogs. The nice thing about a kennel like that is if you ever need it for any of your dogs, you can put them in it.

[Oskar der Drachen]

Originally Posted by KentuckyGSDLover

A small kennel with fencing in an apron underground the perimeter is what I plan to do for Rey when I want to let her out when I can't attend to her. They call it "coyote-proof" fence where I live but it works great for digging dogs. The nice thing about a kennel like that is if you ever need it for any of your dogs, you can put them in it.

Not a bad idea, do you have a picture I could see?

[doggiedad]

build your dog a kennel for outside.
get a large crate or build a kennel for indoors.

[KentuckyGSDLover]

Originally Posted by Oskar der Drachen

Not a bad idea, do you have a picture I could see?

http://www.ca.uky.edu/agc/pubs/for/for37/f2.gif

I plan to have a kennel built that walks out the basement door with a modified plan of the "exclusion fence." If you have no problems with predators that could come in, then simply put the fence apron on the inside and tamp dirt over it. Keeps them from digging out.