Last year my family got our first GSD which has for the most part been a great companion for us all. We have a fairly good sized back yard which is surrounded by chain link fencing so we thought it perfectly fine to let the dog stay in the yard rather than putting him in a kennel. One night when the dog (Rusty) was about 9 months old my wife heard a noise coming from our front door - when she went to investigate the noise to her surprise it was Rusty! She walked him around the house, opened the gate and let him back into the back yard. Within 10 minutes he was on our front porch again. When I got home from work later that night I found that he had torn loose a small piece of the chain link fence. I repaired this and we had no further issues .. in that area at least.

A few weeks after this happened my wife went to feed Rusty and found him in our neighbor's yard. He actually "probed" the bottom of the fence line , found a loose spot and proceeded to go UNDER the fence. This was a problem we dealt with that entire week as he continued to find other loose spots in the fence and run under it. For some reason he always chooses that neighbor's yard as where he wants to go, he never even thinks about going under any of the other fences. At that point Rusty had never seen our neighbor who had been spending all of her time with her terminally ill husband in the hospital.

Once our neighbor returned home and heard that our GSD had been in her yard she was uncomfortable to say the least, and she expressed to me that she was afraid of the dog because he barked at her when she went into her own back yard. Rusty did in fact put quite a scare in me once when the neighbor had a visitor who brought along another dog into that neighbors yard, Rusty seemed to think either the dog or his master (or both) was intruding or something, his hair stood up along his back and he barked differently than I had heard before - a much deeper and "meatier" bark. He did not attempt to get under the fence but I put him on a leash quickly and walked him around the yard a bit to calm him down.I realized in my neighbor's point of view she had a valid point and I decided to kennel the dog as well as beginning obedience training. Well this is a pretty large GSD (now weighs approx 130lbs) and simply put the kennel cannot contain him if he decides he wants out - he breaks the chain linkage on the kennel door.

Rusty has never shown any signs that I (the admittedly unknowledgable one) have recognized as being aggressive. He does not growl or bark at people or dogs when he is being walked in the park, or at the vets office etc. He is a pleasure to have inside the house and is well behaved when any of the family members are with him outside. He is a very loving dog who seems to thrive on interacting with us. Yet that same very loving dog strikes fear into the minds of my neighbors. And after seeing his response to the visitor and his dog that I mentioned earlier I am not 100% convinced he is as harmless as I have long thought him to be.

What can I do to make my dog realize that he needs to stay in his own yard, or in his kennel?

I have purchased the Basic Dog Obedience video from Ed along with a prong collar and an electronic training collar. Rusty and I are working on basic obedience everday. I am also scouring these boards and others like it in hopes of gaining some knowledge. I am willing to dedicate as much time per day as is needed to work thru this but I am totally at a loss when it comes down to what I actually need to do.

Originally posted by Aj Newkirk:
He is a pleasure to have inside the house and is well behaved when any of the family members are with him outside. He is a very loving dog who seems to thrive on interacting with us. Then why not keep him inside the house and exercise him a couple of times a day in the yard--under supervision? It's not a good idea, generally, to leave a dog in they yard all day, creates all kinds of problems.

It is really not feasible for me to leave the dog inside the house all that much due to the fact that it violates our lease.

Move!

Otherwise he will get hit by a car, or worse. GSDs MUST be with people, and if you can't have him in the house interacting with you (or at least spend several hours a day just with him training and interacting) then he will never be happy.

AJ

I have four large GSD's and there's always a couple of them running free in the yard. We have a big yard surronded with a chain link fence. Believe it or not the fence in the front and the side is only three feet tall.

I had the same problem, they were getting out at about 9 months of age.

I simply put up an electric fence wire on top of the fence and a foot above the ground, about 2 feet from the fence. That stops them from going over the top and under. You'd be amazed how fast they'll stay away from the fence after a couple of jolts. I even have small delicate plants between the chain link and the low wire. The dogs will always stay a foot away from the low wire. I may not even need the wire on the fence. The low wire is only a foot tall and they are afraid to jump it.

It's very easy to set up, takes only a couple of hours, uses very little electricity and costs no more than about 200.00 total. I bought mine at Home Depot and it's called "Fido-Shock."

Moving is something we cannot even consider doing in the near future. Right now we live in a rather rural area but we do happen to have neighbors on both sides of us. I did forget to mention in my first post that the neighbor on the other side of our yard has never had any problem with Rusty in any way.

I can spend literally 12 hours per day (possibly more at times) with this dog for training and playtime or what have you. What I cannot do is be with him 100% of every day and watch his every move, nor do I wish I could be. To me that is not a healthy situation for me or my pet.

I guess the real question here for you experts is... based on what info I have provided, do you think i should consider this dog to be potentially dangerous - given the fact that there is a 90%+ likelihood that I cannot keep him kenneled when I am not around?

Second and perhaps more important, is there anything I can do to correct the behavior he has exhibited thus far without risking it getting any worse or putting any of my neighbors at a real risk?

My family and I have grown extremely attached to Rusty. The last thing we want is for him to be unhappy but I cannot risk any potential for him to harm another person or another persons pet. Honestly we just are not experienced enough to accurately determine what is making him bust out of his kennel and also out of our fenced in yard, and therefore we are unable to try to figure out how to correct this. Is it normal for dogs to try to roam outside of their yards? If I could keep him kenneled would that be a solution, or just a temporary fix?

Alan thanks for the info on Fido-Shock! I will look into that tonight or tomorrow that and hopefully we can implement that here.