We adopted an 8 mo Great Dane on Friday from the shelter. He was an owner surrender and has very minimal training - he is house trained and that's about it. I went to our backyard today with the gentle lead collar and leash on him to start practicing "sit". After a couple minutes I took the leash off of him so he could play. We have a privacy fence in the backyard and the neighbors to the one side have a chain link fence that is maybe a foot away from our privacy fence. They have two pit bulls (pit bull breed, not just a bully-looking breed) and a chihuahua that I believe they keep outside all the time.
After I took Chopper off the leash he went over to that fence and the neighbor dogs started barking and one of them started digging a hole under our privacy fence and Chopper started too. I was really alarmed (especially since he ended up touching noses with the one that was digging) and finally got the leash back on Chopper and brought him inside. The neighbor dogs quit after I got him inside and I was able to go back out there and put some soil and a cinder block in that spot to discourage digging in that spot.
Tomorrow I plan on going over and speaking with the neighbors and seeing if they will help us resolve this issue, however I'm not too hopeful and thinking that if they do anything it'll probably just be to put their dogs on chains.
Right now I'm keeping the gentle lead collar on Chopper and taking him out on a leash on the opposite side of the backyard by the side door so we can make a quick escape to the garage if we need to. The only ideas that we have been able to come up with so far outside of that is to dig and place cinder blocks or railroad ties all along that side of the fence. Any other ideas? I don't want myself, my family or my dog injured, and I don't want to have to get rid of my dog either!
P.S. I don't think there's anything wrong with pit bulls, but these dogs aren't really getting any socialization from what I can tell and I honestly don't know why the neighbors even have them if they're not going to be part of their family.
After I took Chopper off the leash he went over to that fence and the neighbor dogs started barking and one of them started digging a hole under our privacy fence and Chopper started too. I was really alarmed (especially since he ended up touching noses with the one that was digging) and finally got the leash back on Chopper and brought him inside. The neighbor dogs quit after I got him inside and I was able to go back out there and put some soil and a cinder block in that spot to discourage digging in that spot.
Tomorrow I plan on going over and speaking with the neighbors and seeing if they will help us resolve this issue, however I'm not too hopeful and thinking that if they do anything it'll probably just be to put their dogs on chains.
Right now I'm keeping the gentle lead collar on Chopper and taking him out on a leash on the opposite side of the backyard by the side door so we can make a quick escape to the garage if we need to. The only ideas that we have been able to come up with so far outside of that is to dig and place cinder blocks or railroad ties all along that side of the fence. Any other ideas? I don't want myself, my family or my dog injured, and I don't want to have to get rid of my dog either!P.S. I don't think there's anything wrong with pit bulls, but these dogs aren't really getting any socialization from what I can tell and I honestly don't know why the neighbors even have them if they're not going to be part of their family.
