Reasons your dog shouldn’t have free access to the front yard

If you have a footpath at your fence line or somewhere else the public are walking past your property regularly, one of the best things you can do is contain dogs away from that fence line when unsupervised - ideally without visual access to the street. Here’s why 👇🏻

1️⃣ Practicing reactive behaviour.

Each time someone walks past, gets barked at and keeps walking your dog is thinking “hey, I made that person stay away and kept my property safe”, reinforcing that response. This makes it more likely to happen next time creating a barking issue, and can also bleed over into other areas such as your walks.

2️⃣ Building motivation/potential for escape.

Your dog is seeing exciting stuff going on, and that frustration is building each time. Eventually they may just go right over the fence after it & learn that yup - that behaviour is now in our repertoire of things we do.

3️⃣ Unpleasant for the public and dogs going past.

If you ever walk around residential areas you know all about this. The dogs we cross the street to avoid, the dogs that set back your own dogs training and have you rushing to get past. It’s not good for anyone.

4️⃣ Obstructing front door access.

If emergency services need to get to your front door, they shouldn’t have to get past your unsupervised dog.

5️⃣ Risk of bites & penalties.

If you’re not there, you’ve got no control of what the public do when interacting with your dog. Kids throwing sticks, people leaning over to pat your dog - easy way for someone to get bitten and you and your dog to have to deal with a legal headache.

We can work on your dogs feelings around people walking past & stop them reacting when you’re out and about but we cannot train a dog when we’re not there to do anything about it. Set them and your community up for success where you can and don’t let your dog be an issue unchecked.

Contact 👉🏻 hello@wolfedogs.nz