Suburban backyard pet safety

I saw this article in the Chicago Examiner and wanted to pass it along. Some great safety tips that, perhaps we've forgotten or overlooked. Enjoy!

Away from home, city or suburb, your pet should be leashed for safety unless you’re playing with your dog in a designated off-leash dog park—but I covered leashing your pet safely in yesterday’s Keeping your pets safe in the city post. So, let’s talk briefly about how you keep your pet safely confined in your yard. Fence is the most convenient confinement. But what if your yard has no fencing?

Our previous house had a laundry line running from house to garage that doubled as the perfect cable from which to attach a long lead. With the end of the lead high off the ground away from trees, our very active half-terrier, Amber, couldn’t tangle the lead around anything. It did let her get into my vegetable garden … but I never left her out without supervision anyway.

Our current yard has no good place for a high cable—mostly because our corner lot has no private back area, just a lot of side yard. Luckily, I have a metal auger stake I can screw into whatever part of the yard I choose if our current dog, Crystal, accompanies with me while I’m gardening, mowing—or any activity other than walking her around the yard.. The stake needs to be far enough from trees that Crystal won’t wrap herself around a trunk but close enough she can get to shade. If we’re going to be out a long time, I bring a water dish out for her.

If you do have a fenced yard, or are planning to fence some or all of your yard, how do choose fence to keep your pet in? Start with a fencing material that doesn’t have gaps large enough for your pet to squeeze through. The exception to this would be if you install a so-called “invisible fence” electronic warning system and choose to reinforce the barrier with, say, a split-rail fence, to remind your children not to run into the neighbors’ yards … or the street.

Besides going through a fence, dogs (and any other pets you might want to let loose in a yard) have over and under tendencies. If your dog is a digger, you may need to dig a trench inside your fence, line it on the fence side with a sturdy mesh, then backfill to replace garden or turf, to discourage your dog from trying to tunnel free. A lot of work, yes—but you’ll get the benefit of discouraging groundhog and rabbit pests from entering your back yard.

Fence height should be chosen based on the size and jumping abilities of your pet. Our neighbors have a malamute that often decides its yard is boring. The wire running below the fence stops Harley from crawling out. However, the top of the vertical slat fence rises not much over waist high on me, a 5’6” woman, at its lowest points—so Harley jumps out whenever wanderlust takes him.

Finally, know that invisible fencing not for every dog. I’m pretty sure it would work fine for our Crystal, an easy-going spaniel/retriever-ish sort of dog. However, our half-terrier Amber would have blown past such fencing without a second thought. She was smart enough to have figured out that the momentary unpleasantness would cease once she got past the boundary and out of range. The other factor to make you think twice about invisible fencing is aggressiveness. Aggressive dogs, frustrated by being zapped at a barrier they can’t see, may become more aggressive toward people and dogs approaching their yard along a public sidewalk. For such dogs, visible fencing reassures your dog as well as passers-by.