SELF WALKING DOG !!!!! please help

[xxstephy1xx]

my german shepherd dog first joined our family when we lived in a large house with lots of land for her to roam on, we have moved to a different house wich has a very small garden , in the middle of a village and we have neighboroughs! our dog has taken it upon herself to go where she pleases and regurly this mean on the road !!! we do walk her and weve tried everything to keep her in the garden but she just keeps getting out she also has a habbit of woundering onto other peoples properties and its getting out of hand, everyone in the village thinks were bad neighboroughs and there have been several complaints , please PLEASE say there is a way to keep her from doing this its so stressfull and giving her up is NOT an option .x

[Leigha]

Do you know how she is getting out of your yard? Is she digging, jumping the fence, squeezing through the gate?

Also, how much exercise, mentally and physically, does she get every day?

[Nettle]

You need a sound fence, not necessarily the whole garden fenced, but a pen she can stay in when unsupervised. Dogproof fencing needs to be dug in underground, and if paving slabs are laid around the perimeter, a dog is less likely to dig under. fences must be checked daily.

Then the dog should not be left in the less well fenced part of the garden unsupervised, and should have plenty of exercise and occupation so she is less likely to want to stray - but any dog will stray if it gets the opportunity, so we all have to make sure they don't.

[emmabeth]

You need a secure fence. Unless she can climb, you can fairly cheaply make a secure fence from stock wire netting (look on ebay or at an agricultural/farmers type store, its the sort of wire fencing you use to keep sheep, pigs, cattle etc in), put two rows of that up, one above the other so it is 5ft high and then the top six inches, incline inwards to about 45 degrees.

Make sure the bottom is under the ground level and if she is a digger, concrete slabs all the way around the perimeter so shec annot dig out and make sure the whole fence is tensioned properly.

This is what i use to keep my dogs in and all of my dogs can clear 6ft +.... but ONLY if it looks solid, and they can judge how high it is, and with a wire fence that has an inwards overhang...they cannot judge how high it is, so dont knowwhere to take off to jump it, so stay in!

If you regularly have people/other dogs walking past your garden you will also need to put something around the lower run of wire so she cant see out or if you leave her out there unattended there is a risk she will get a kick out of fence running and aggressing at whatever is going past (its a very rewarding behaviour for a dog!) or ideally... do not leave her outside unsupervised.

[xxstephy1xx]

thank you all so much for the replies i especially aprecaite the ' its not being naughty its simply being a dog' because alot of people come round sayin she wants puttin down n it furiates me so much , also she gets lots of attension in the house n walked an average ammount , but its only me that walks her my sister dont bother at all so when i got out im convinced she gets non

[Mattie]

I used to have a dog that had learn if she wanted a walk she had to take herself, this was before I got her but this was well established and took some difficulty to stop.

We already had a secure garden, 5ft wooden fencing, Tommy could jump this from a standstill, we added another 2 ft of plastic netting to the top and had it loose. This meant that Tommy couldn't judge the height of the fence so she didn't jump out. Unfortunately one of my neighbours grew ivy up this and this made the netting look solid so Tommy started to jump out again. Tommy was getting a minimum of 1 hour off lead a day with 2/3 other smaller walks at this time so she was well exercised.

You can stop her from jumping out, also make sure she is getting enough exercise both mentally and physically, there are threads on here about mental exercising a dog, they are very good.