Roaming Dogs Caught on Game Camera Several Times

[speckledhen]

Considering all you are going through to keep these hounds at bay, and with your physical limitations, I would again implore you to consider helping yourself out with an electric fence. Once you get the brush back from the fence, you would need to keep it at bay, but consider an electric fence to be a far better option than constantly standing vigil with a shotgun. The threat is constant.......and so is the deterrent of the fence.

Here are some photos of a fence I put up to pasture in a section of woods for some horses.





Because it runs through dense woods, I only had to clear that path once.......and that was months ago.

Here is another fence that may be like yours............



This is out in the open, but note how the brush and weeds have grown up around it. Also note the single wire on top. That wire is not hot, but it could be made so easily with little to no concern about it grounding out from weeds. As is, a whole lot of dogs could simply jump on it and climb it. But if that top wire was hot, the moment they touched it, they would drop off and run the other way. I note how you mentioned the dog in question climbed to get out? Well they almost certainly did the same thing to get in. A hot fence would stop them from doing that.

Mostly I keep harping on this out of concern for you and your birds. Shooting your neighbors dogs inside the wire as a defensive strategy is will eventually going to fail, ending in some tragic report where the dogs got in and all your birds were killed. At best, that is short term until you can do better.

I hear you, I really do. I guess it's just that we'd have to probably hire someone to clear the path of the perimeter fence all around the 2+ acres, an added expense in addition to whatever supplies would be needed. This will be hundreds more in expense for this issue than anticipated after already having spent time, money and lots of energy putting up all this fencing in the first place, hundreds we really don't have when we think of other expenditures coming up soon. I agree that a 24/7 barrier would be better than always being on guard with weaponry, not sure DH would want to spend that. Then, again, losing valuable birds isn't a fun option, either.

We raised AKC Dobermans when I was a kid, probably some of the only folks who kept their dogs fenced. My dad put those leaning brackets at the top of our 5' chain link fence that leaned inward and held 3 strands of barbed wire across and around the perimeter of the fence, because, obviously, a Dobe has the agility to jump a fence with little problem. Not sure if that would work or not, but it would be not easy to do with this type fence, I'd think.

I'd like to have a hot fence, for dogs, coyotes as well as human predators, certainly. This is an area I'm just now learning about, too. How do you handle all the gates? We have four gates, including the driveway gate, in the perimeter fence. How do you continue the run across a gate? We go through the back chain link gate into the pasture quite a bit, and the driveway gate, of course. The other two are rarely used, the one at the front corner is never used so it's not a problem, could go right across that.

 

[speckledhen]

Checked the game camera on hopes that they would have walked in front of it inside the fence before today's incident. BINGO! Clearly inside the livestock fencing, right in front of the camera.

 

[centrarchid]

Fencing needs a serious upgrade and I would use hot-wire or some sort as Howard-E suggested. You will likely get opportunity to kills these dogs as you are trying to do but whole fiasco will be repeated at some point down the road because the fencing is not up to snuff. The hot-wire setup likely to be effective will cost only a fraction of what your current fencing material cost is. Additional, using the hot-wire in concert with what you have will make for better, much better than what wither fence would do alone.


Why are dogs coming into a 2 acre fenced in field with such motivation?

 

[speckledhen]

Fencing needs a serious upgrade and I would use hot-wire or some sort as Howard-E suggested. You will likely get opportunity to kills these dogs as you are trying to do but whole fiasco will be repeated at some point down the road because the fencing is not up to snuff. The hot-wire setup likely to be effective will cost only a fraction of what your current fencing material cost is. Additional, using the hot-wire in concert with what you have will make for better, much better than what wither fence would do alone.


Why are dogs coming into a 2 acre fenced in field with such motivation?

Well, that's the million dollar question. The only thing I can think of is they are running deer, which come onto my property every day. There is no trash, no food left out, nothing except the fenced-around shavings/compost pile from the barn. It has only chicken poop and shavings from the coop and maybe green foliage we've cut, no food at all. They can't see the chickens after they are all locked inside before dusk, though certainly, they can smell them and may have been around to see them at some point.

I walked the fence line over near where they had torn it apart at the corner and back toward the old coops area. None was actually down, just the corner section I showed earlier. Some of it has torn off the trees at the top, probably from weight of whatever has gone over it. That entire section is going to be shored back up. I have a good bit of fence pieces, some with hardware cloth attached from old dig barriers, that I can put at the bottom of places where the ground has sunk over time a bit. Going out with hammer and heavy staples in a minute to re-secure the tops to the few trees where it's been torn off. Seems that section is really the only bad one. I have some extra U-posts I can add to it as well from the garden and replace the ones in the garden next season.

So, this is not a quick-fix, because just clearing up the fence line where saplings have grown up through, etc, will take time if we do it, or money if someone else does it (in short supply on military pension, as you can imagine). Will get busy on that part and look into the hot wire as suggested.

These were taken last night, just before midnight and after. So, I think they're just running deer, but they're causing me way too much stress. I still wonder why no one called their dog after a gunshot and a yelp. Boggles the mind. I do believe they live close by, they're here so much.

 

[GabrielBane]

So sorry you, your family and your girls have to deal with the irresponsibility of others. Boggles my mind that anyone would allow their dogs to just roam with no regard for the safety of not only others' property, but also of the dogs themselves. Makes me shake my head. I hope it doesn't come down to it, but you're 100% in the right in the actions you've presented. Do what needs to be done. Best of luck ,and I hope they go away soon.

 

[1muttsfan]

They make handles that you hook to a strand of the wire, on the other end of the handle is a little hook that you hook over the electric fence on the other side of the gate. Inexpensive and easy to use.

 

[speckledhen]

So sorry you, your family and your girls have to deal with the irresponsibility of others. Boggles my mind that anyone would allow their dogs to just roam with no regard for the safety of not only others' property, but also of the dogs themselves. Makes me shake my head. I hope it doesn't come down to it, but you're 100% in the right in the actions you've presented. Do what needs to be done. Best of luck ,and I hope they go away soon.

Thanks. No sign of them. I guess the black dog shot right over the fence without slowing down and left his companion behind.

They make handles that you hook to a strand of the wire, on the other end of the handle is a little hook that you hook over the electric fence on the other side of the gate. Inexpensive and easy to use.

Thanks, I had never even thought about how to handle a gate. I just went over about 3/4 of the perimeter fence. I reattached the top strands that had come loose from trees, added dig barriers to places where the ground had settled over the past ten years, added a few u-posts for extra support. Still have some more work to do in a couple of sections close to the back cross section where the pasture is, places that need another u-post, but it's all intact, just some is loose/floppy at the top from deer crashing into it over the years. I looked for dog hair on the lower strands for evidence that they had gone under and there was nothing. I am convinced that they went over, not under.

With all the nasty green brier and saplings and other vines that have grown up and through the fence, it will take quite some time to clear the entire path before I can even think of adding any heat to the fence. My poor husband heard me say I was going out to fix some places on the fence and he dragged himself out of the bed to come help me, poor guy.


NOTE TO SELF: wear your rat-stompers when walking down a leaf-covered, hole-ridden slope in the woods and you won't end up on your can when your tennis shoes with no tread slip out from under you.

 

[bobbi-j]

So sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations with those dogs!

I agree that good electric fence would be a huge deterrent. One of my dogs went under the horse fence once, but didn't get his tail tucked down far enough... He avoided that fence at all cost, after that! We use it around our sweet corn for coons and deer. We put up several strands to keep them from crawling under or going over. Do you have a rifle? Might be more effective in eliminating the problem than a shotgun. Or do you have neighbors too close for that? Whatever you need to do, I hope you can get rid of them soon. SSS sounds pretty good to me.

I hope your hubby gets feeling better soon after his fall! Please thank him for his service to our country.

 

[aart]

With all the nasty green brier and saplings and other vines that have grown up and through the fence, it will take quite some time to clear the entire path before I can even think of adding any heat to the fence.

Putting up fence can be a bear......keeping it clear as the years go on gets harder and harder and harder.
It's a laborious, never ending battle unless you like to use a defoliant.

 

[speckledhen]

So sorry to hear of your trials and tribulations with those dogs!

I agree that good electric fence would be a huge deterrent. One of my dogs went under the horse fence once, but didn't get his tail tucked down far enough... He avoided that fence at all cost, after that! We use it around our sweet corn for coons and deer. We put up several strands to keep them from crawling under or going over. Do you have a rifle? Might be more effective in eliminating the problem than a shotgun. Or do you have neighbors too close for that? Whatever you need to do, I hope you can get rid of them soon. SSS sounds pretty good to me.

I hope your hubby gets feeling better soon after his fall! Please thank him for his service to our country.

Thanks, Bobbi. Yes, our neighbors, though fairly hidden, are semi- close, at least two of them are. We almost were shot ourselves by a .22 when the neighbor's son down the mountain was shooting at squirrels in his corn with a rifle. It traveled up the hill, through the trees, and pinged on a U-post in the garden, 20' from where husband and I were standing. So, yeah, probably not a great idea. We can certainly put in heavier shot if need be.

I will tell him what you said, thank you. He's hurting all over today, poor guy. I've had several falls myself on this place.The last one badly bruised my left rib cage, one before messed up my knee. Yeah, we hit the dirt and keep going, but it's a longer healing process than it used to be for us both, but especially him.


In this photo, you can see the roof of the guy below me near the photo watermark-you'll definitely want to click to enlarge it and sorry for the weird panorama perspective of the photo. He lives across the road that divides our places, below us. There have been folks staying there that are not normally living with him so makes me wonder if the dogs belong to them. Since we'd had issues in the past with his dog (and I have a thread about that "Trapped a Dog on My Deck..."), you'd think he'd tell them they had to keep the dogs in the huge chainlink area he had put up for his mutt, if those are their dogs.

Putting up fence can be a bear......keeping it clear as the years go on gets harder and harder and harder.
It's a laborious, never ending battle unless you like to use a defoliant.

Yep, you got that right. We have never used any poisons because of our free ranging birds. They go all the way to the perimeter fences on all sides when they're out. "Laborious" and "never-ending" are two things that DH doesn't do well anymore; frankly, I'm not all that happy about it, either. I can do it, but I've already shattered an ankle and will have issues for the rest of my life because of it (osteopenia).