Options for outdoor confinement? Please help!

kindte

New member
( Posted this is r/dogtraining and though I might try here as well)

Hi everyone! I am not super sure where to post this, hopefully this is alright here.

So I have a somewhat unique situation that I didn’t really know how to google lol I’m hoping I can gather more info here. I work at my parents house in the office for their business. They are moving to a new house in about 1-2 months a few neighborhoods over for more space for their business. Both houses are 3 minutes from my place. Now, I take my dog with me every morning to work. She is a 9 month old GSD. Here is our current timeline just in case it helps for some reason.

6:30am - Let out of crate in the morning to hang out

7:30am - This is when we leave for work, she gets put in the backyard at my parents house in a dog run. (The dog run won’t work at the new house because there is not fence so act as the back section of the dog run and we do not have enough sections of dog run to make a square, if that makes sense)

8:30am - this is usually when the office work slows down and I intermittently let her out of the dog run to play fetch until I’m never back in the office

10:00am - We head back home for my lunch break which is 2 hours. She hangs out while I work out and fix lunch etc.

12:00pm - She gets put back in her crate for nap time until I return from work.

3:00pm - I get off work and she hangs out the rest of the day with me.

She will be going from 0.1 acres of land to 0.6 which is a pretty large improvement. However, she cannot be unsupervised. She is in the throes of adolescence and I simply don’t trust her alone. Especially at the new house, she will not be familiar with it.

The big kicker is that the large backyard is not fenced yet. They never had one, so the large backyard is sort of just open to the neighbors land, which is a no no for my pup, she would probably just leave lol and go wherever. My dad will not be able to build a fence for a few months until the busy season for the business is over.

SO after all that, my question is... what options do I have for confinement? My dad and I would both love to see her continue to be able to run around and play for those three hours in the morning instead of being in her crate the whole time at my place. However with no fence, we’re not sure what options are even out there. She can’t just roam around. She’s also a big girl and I know she scares people when she gets reactive occasionally about other dogs/people too close.

He was thinking a cable type thing for her harness to clip to where she can kinda zip line herself around the yard. However, if I attached a cable or anything to her harness and left her alone, she would chew her harness off. My next thought was a slip collar (?) where it tightens if she pulls, that way she could not get out of it or chew the collar off. I don’t know if that’s a good idea though.

This was so long lol thank you for reading if you made it this far and I hope I can figure something out with your suggestions!

Puppy Tax ( )
 
@kindte If unsupervised I would highly advise against leaving the dog tethered in a harness. They can come loose, or be chewed off easily compared to a collar. I have always trusted quality flat buckle collars for tethering my dogs safely. If that is the route you go keep in mind setting up a nice doghouse in case it rains, or if she just wants to lay down somewhere comfortable, and check your hardware daily. It's easily forgotten once set up and weak spots can break causing really scary situations between other dogs, rude kids, or traveling cars.
 
@acuriousgirl Thank you! She will not be unsupervised long as I can check on her quickly. She will also be able to come into the new office with me, which is a converted garage. I definitely don’t want to put her in a harness because she has both slipped out and chewed them off before. I will check into those flat collars, thank you again!
 
@kindte Do not put a slip lead on a cable tie out (even the line and runner type) your dog can choke itself out if they wrap themselves around something (and also possibly if they don't)

A martingale collar would be a lot safer.

Personally I'd suck it up and buy a few more panels for the dog run until the fence is done. Dogs on a line will occupy themselves a lot less (more sleeping in sunny corners because it's not worth the hassle of monkeying around while dodging and untangling the tie out)
 
@joyathome That’s what I was afraid might happen, thank you for your input! I believe the martingale collar is what I was thinking of. We got the panels from a job that was abandoned, I’ll see if I can find more of the same kind or similar.
 
@kindte I used to have to physically pick up my 70lb husky and move him to shade spots when we lived in South Carolina, he loves sleeping in the sun. It was ridiculous, and when we lived in northern NY (where he's from) he would fall asleep on the last snowpiles left in the yard around in April/early May (left over from the driveway being shoveled )

Dogs are weird.
 
Back
Top