Fencing

We have a small garden at our holiday caravan and have permission to fence it in so the dogs can be off lead. We can only have solid fencing 4 ft high but could put wire or trellis above that height. Just wondered what you have and how successful it is at keeping yours in. Mollie I am not too concerned about because she is not an escapee and is very friendly to everyone but we have to make sure Duncan can't get out or people get to him.

They won't be out unsupervised at any time but would be nice if he could have his lead off for a change.

The best way to stop a dog escaping is to have an angled top eg wire etc. Dogs cannot escape over this.

However, as your fence is only 4 ft tall, you may wish to consider mesh above it, dogs do not like the feel or the fact that it gives way under their feet.

This is what I've had to do - and the 6' fencing-climbing beast hasn't got out since We just did a DIY job of copying the cat-proofing fence systems, google "cat proof fence" and look at the images for ideas

A determined dog can get over most fences. But luckily they learn that the fenced bit is `their` bit and regard it as their space - so why would they want to `escape`? Especially if you`re there with them?
Unless of course there`s livestock, cats or a burger van in the vicinity, I wouldn`t worry too much.
You can fix trellis to the top to make it impossible to scale, or grow climbing roses up it if you want to make it spiky?

Try telling Casper that! He just found the holes handy footholds to give himself that last boost over He's generally not one to bother trying now but occasionally he can smell/hear the horses the other side and has a bit of a leap up, even though I'm there, but it would only take a minute for a dog to leap over a fence to take chase of a football being kicked around or whatever temptation is calling them.

How small is small (I'm guessing very if it's around a caravan)?

If big enough, running some plastic temporary fencing (easily put up and taken down when not in use with the use of the spiked fencing posts used for electric fencing) about a foot or so inside the solid fence might help. Two obstacles close together can deter some (but by no means all) dogs.

Thanks all some things to think about there, and yes very small garden but better than none at all. What we have to stop Duncan doing is getting to the rotties two caravans down, he is DA and so is one of the rotties so if they ever met I don't think they would be best friends

If you are worried, you could always have him on a long line tied to something, or spiked into the ground(long enough that he has all the garden, but not long enough that he can reach the fence), then at least you know he won't be able to escape, but he still has some freeedom!

Yes that's what we have at the moment - he doesn't bother with them when they are outside their van just when they walk past our caravan which he see's as one step too close for his liking.