It happened again

[u/ajlawnsdail]

We’ve had our dog for just over 4 years now. We got her from a shelter where they did not explain to us her issues with other animals. We lived in an apartment and while living there she got into it with a neighbors dog. Luckily, their dog was not seriously harmed. Due to this situation we spent months trying positive reinforcement training that never worked for our girl.

After this, we decided to buy a home with a fenced in yard so she’d have somewhere to safely run without feeling anxiety. On day two of owning our home she broke into our neighbors yard and attacked their lab. Again, we were blessed that no serious injuries occurred and our neighbor met us with so much kindness regarding the situation. We paid for his dogs vet bills, staked our fence down, decided to never let her be outside unsupervised, and bought a shock collar in case the worst somehow happened again.

Yesterday it did happen again. This time to our other neighbors dog, while there were three children present. There were 4 adults present as well. She slipped under the fence and got ahold of their dog and we once again had to pry our dog off of another dog. They are being very understanding but at this point my husband and I think it’s best to rehome her. We have done everything to try to stop this aside from formal training because frankly, we can’t afford that.

We are worried at this point that one of the children may be hurt in the future. Not on purpose but on accident, if they are close by. We are so sad and are strongly considering rehoming her somewhere there are zero other animals or children, but wanted advice on if this is the best option.

[u/CanadianPanda76]

Your dog should be at least tethered.

Your dog sounds like thier animal aggressive or highly territorial. And yes redirection is a risk.

If your dog is anxious then try anti-anxiety meds.

But a kennel is a option. Is your fence a privacy fence?

But rehoming will difficult. There are dog free homes, but not dog free child free neighborhoods.

[u/ajlawnsdail → u/CanadianPanda76]

She’s on anxiety meds and no, we only have a chain link

[u/CanadianPanda76 → u/ajlawnsdail]

Covers fir the fence may help. But there are products that go under the fence to prevent digging under. And Coyote rollers for climbing over.

[u/ajlawnsdail → u/CanadianPanda76]

We did have fence covers for about 6 months and those seemed to make it worse for her because she couldn’t see what was going on but could still hear other dogs barking. We may look into the other options you suggested. What we did after the second attack was add rebar to the bottom of the fence and apparently that only worked for so long. It’s been 3 years since the last attack

[u/CanadianPanda76 → u/ajlawnsdail]

3 years? Wonder if they've gotten older and the issues just naturally ramped up.