My Dog...

Question
Hi my name is cheryl, i have an akita-chow mix. and he is about 3-4 years old. and we had another dog along with this other one. and our other dog taught this dog how to jump our fence, can you tell me a way to prevent that, we have already tried the underground fence and we have an 8 foot privacy fence. and he like climbs up it and then he pulls him self over. and he will not stop jumping the fence. and another question i have is that we just got him neutered and there is another male dog around our house and he is also neutered is there a reason for my dog to be attacking their dog? when there are more males and female dogs around. why does he just go for that one dog.
thank you.

Answer
It can take a long as 6 months for the hormone levels to drop down to 'inactive' levels after a mature dog is neutered, Cheryl. That could be part of the problem with your dog continuing to escape and fight with the other dog. It sounds like a territorial dispute, or possibly a dispute over a female.

As for his escaping the yard, the first thing I would have to recommend is that you not allow him in the yard unsupervised, so that you can prevent him from climbing over the fence.

In addition to keeping an eye on him at all times, I would advise you to run the invisible fence wiring along the fence itself, about halfway up, and set the boundary so that he is receiving the static correction >>before<< he gets to the fence. If you can set it so that he hears the warning tone when he's 3-4 feet away from the fence, that should be sufficient. You will, of course, need to put up the flags around the inside of the yard so that he has a visual 'barrier' and can learn where the correction zone begins. If you did not take the time to teach him how to respond to the warning tone/shock, you need to do that now. Put the IF collar on him EVERY TIME you put him out in the yard! If he doesn't seem to notice the shocks, you may want to consider getting him a 'stubborn dog' collar.

You might also consider running a strand of electric wire along the very top of the 8ft privacy panels, just in case he fights through the shock of the IF collar.