[cowpony]

I've never been able to train Pogo out of leash and fence reactivity. The best I've been able to do is tone down the reaction by giving him a stuffy and/or calling him away from whatever is upsetting him. Usually what happens is that he sees dog in the distance. He runs to the fence to bark. However, since he has a stuffy in his mouth, it comes out like Mrrmph. He charges to the fence, makes his mrrmph noise, shakes the stuffy really hard, jumps around a bit, goes mrrmph again, and keeps at it until I call him in or the other dog disappears from view.

This evening I took the puppy out for one last pee before bed. Pogo casually ambled out to join us. To my surprise he suddenly grabbed his stuffy and charged my side fence while making his mrrmph noise. My side fence faces my garage. The only animal likely to be back there is a coyote. Yikes. I do not want the puppy innocently walking up to the fence to say hi to a coyote. Good boy Pogo! Pogo finished up by walking stiffly along the perimeter of my entire fence, stopping periodically to mark it. I'm glad I've got such a protective boy, plus a five foot fence.

 

[Fenris-wolf]

Good boy, Pogo! That's really awesome and cute that he grabs his stuffy too. How are him and the puppy doing together?

 

[cowpony]

Good boy, Pogo! That's really awesome and cute that he grabs his stuffy too. How are him and the puppy doing together?

Mostly ok. Pogo is being very tolerant of puppy antics. The puppy likes to leap at Pogo's face during fetch games. Luckily this is behavior Pogo has encountered before; he used to have a terrier friend with the same play style. Pogo, being so much taller than a terrier, used to tease her by holding the tennis ball over her head and yanking it away when she leapt for it. He's not doing quite the same thing to Galen. He's actually putting the ball down and letting Galen mouth it. I think this is a recognition of and concession to Galen's puppy status.

Pogo will also try to entice Galen into playing by poking him or gently nipping him. Galen isn't quite ready for that kind of roughhousing and responds with a shriek. I move them to a different activity when that happens. They will figure it out as Galen matures.

 

[lily cd re]

Do you have enough coyotes around to justify rollers on top of your fence? They certainly could easily clear a five foot fence.

 

[cowpony]

Do you have enough coyotes around to justify rollers on top of your fence? They certainly could easily clear a five foot fence.

Yeah, we get coyote cruising through on a daily basis. Our side yard is a critter corridor. Our game cam regularly captures images of coyote, deer, and turkeys. More rarely we get fox and rabbit. Last year one of my neighbors even had a bear rip open a bird feeder. I've never really had trouble with animals in the yard. The lack of any food sources like bird feeders or trash cans, plus Snarky and Pogo patrolling the fenceline, has made the local wildlife disinclined to drop in for a visit. My fence is wire mesh without a top rail. I would need to upgrade it to mount rollers. I think I will move the game cam to cover the area right next to the fence. If I see a pattern of coyote activity I'll put a motion activated water sprayer there. That should deter the casual tourists.