How would you feel if you were in the dog's position?

Teach recall and the boundaries. Correct the pup and call it over the moment it's near that area of the fence. It shouldn't take long if you're consistent. I've had my rescue dog for 9 months and I can take her out to my parents and grandmothers yards off leash even though they aren't fenced. All I need to do is say "this way" or "come here" or open a ziploc bag of treats.

I honestly would do something to the fence to block it, despite your neighbor's issues.

Tie outs won't work for running around, contribute to aggrrssion, and can be dangerous. Some states are banning them. Training is permanent.

It is a terrible, terrible idea. For which reason stakes & ties are outlawed in many places.

Your planned approach OP will also be a problem with young kids around. The line can knock over young ones as the dog runs about.

You might consider a line that gets attached high up on your house near the roof line and then the other end to a tree as far back as is available. It's sort of like a zip line but the dog just runs on the ground tethered to the line. I will say that none of this is really a great idea. It's bad for the dog because what he needs is supervision just like your kids. I had this set up when a neighborhood child came riding his bike up to my dog to pet him. They were well acquainted with one another but my dog bit him anyway. Also my sister's dog hung himself on a fence from one of the stake type of tethers so this does actually happen. What we ended up doing with a dog and toddler combo was skateboard the dog alone to get him tired in a short amount of time plus regular walks accompanied by the kids several times a day. PITA and time consuming but good for everyone in the long run.

If you go for a tie-out, you actually want a shorter one, because the dog running with a long cable attached will be dangerous to your kids (think high speed dog, cable hits kids). A few times we have put a few leashes together (so our dog can be out front with us), and if we don't tie it up right, she nearly wipes out our kids and anything else. And that is with soft leashes and a fairly slow dog. So you want to be able to keep her in one section of the yard. The longer the leash/tie out, the more then can get all tangled up also. But a shorter one may allow you to get the dog out of the house.

Could you buy some green temporary fencing and a few stakes (Tomato stakes work well) to cover the escape hatch? Or is it the entire fence?

Please please don't do this.

Check out this on fixing fences for dogs: http://badrap-blog.blogspot.com/2010/02/march-is-fix-your-darned-fence-month.html

Anonymous wrote:Don't do this, please. Really. My first dog was an escape artist like yours and so we used one of these things. I'll never ever forget coming home and finding him hanging from the fence, dead. He had been spooked, and tried to escape. Oh God, it was awful. I'm only thankful that the kid next door wasn't the one to find him.

Yes. This can happen. I'd work on the fence project.

I say this because my dog's collar got tangled and nearly choked him. He did pass out. I was home and found him in time to save him. Thinking back to it makes me want to throw up. To this day, he wears a breakaway collar, as a result of that near miss.