How sneaky is your dog? Is your dog a master escape artist? If you’re a dog owner, having a nice fenced backyard is a must. Thus, you do not have to wonder about its whereabouts any time of the day when you’ll busy with other stuff.
When your dog gets out of the yard, its safety is at the mercy of what you don’t know. Or it may cause some damage or injury, and you’ll be required to pay some fine if it ends up in the hands of the animal control agency. Therefore, it’s essential to train your dog to remain in the yard at all times. However, the fact that dogs like to roam around makes it somehow difficult to train your pet. Make sure you have appropriate training accessories, such as collars and doggy bandanas. With training, it will eventually obey or do something close.
The process of training your dog not to escape starts with you learning the reasons for escaping and then things you can do to prevent that from happening. For instance, dogs roam for various reasons depending on their personalities. However, the common causes include loneliness, finding something fun outside, chasing, protecting territory, and when it finds a friend.
Things to Prevent Escaping
1. Teach Your Dog Boundaries
Train your dog not to go past yard boundaries. Mark the boundary and get down to training, whereby you command it to stop or sit when about to cross the boundary. Every time it does obey, make sure you offer a treat immediately. Keep repeating this so that it understands that whenever it follows instructions, a big gift will be offered.
Training may take from a week to months, depending on how consistent you are. Always keep increasing the distance from your dog while training as well as reducing treats as it continues to master the commands and responding positively.
Show irritation and punish it whenever it does not obey your command. In this way, your dog learns that going outside of the boundary is a crime.
2. Build a Fence
Perhaps, this should be pretty obvious. A fence will confine your dog even if you’re busy somewhere. Therefore, having a physical wall is essential to keep your dog from roaming in the streets. If a physical fence can be a bit hard to have, then an electric fence can serve the purpose.
Also, while you have the fence in place, you should ensure that your dog is unable to dig past the wall and get to the other side. Therefore, you should decrease the chances of that happening by placing a chain link fence safely. Alternatively, you can put large rocks at the edge of your yard.
3. Keep Your Dog Engaged
Some dogs escape out of boredom. You should as much as possible introduce the dog to new and stimulating experiences. Play several games together to ensure that your dog is kept content and occupied. Make some walks out of the compound for some hours to dispel energy and keep your dog happy. Eventually, the escaping agenda will be firmly off.
