Here is the long and the short of it. My bud Podster is a follower and a year ago, we took on Stretch who is the leader. Stretch wants to go off hunting and Pod follows. They started doing it when we were on vacation last June. Then at night, now, they might stay gone for four days at a time. Stretch carries more weight and Pod is skinny, a high energy dog. He comes in poor, poor, poor!
Pod is neutered, Stretch has an appt in April. But that won't stop it. Females don't appear to be on their minds. Our neighbors with dogs have never seen them hanging around their houses.
We are remote with miles of timber company land, also with a creek behind us and that appears to be the direction they go. They come back home wet and muddy, tired and hungry.
They go to work with us when they are here. We have an acre under fence for them to stay in. They have a heated enclosed porch with a pet access door. I lived in fear they would be shot during hunting season and kept them closed in at night on the heated porch.
The acre around our house has a stock fence which Stretch learned to work holes in. I have since refenced in 4' high cattle panels. He will probably learn to climb them next.
He could squeeze under the drive thru gates and when Pod would not follow, he would dig a holes under the gate so Pod would come thru. We placed large broken chunks of concrete under one gate to deter the digging or crawling under. On the other drive thru gate, we built a concrete speed bump.
I caught Stretch straining himself thru the slats on the aluminum drive thru gate and covered all our gates with chicken wire netting to prevent that.
We "rescued" him from a trip to the kill shelter but the people were not truthful about him. They said he was lazy but what it was is exhaustion from rambling and hunting. When home, he appears to be a most lethargic lab. Odd too, he will not retrieve or swim or bark or...
I will not chain him in this yard or kennel him. If we have to be gone for a period of time, we have a young couple with children that come and tend to them and the cats. I won't keep Stretch contained for that long without excercise and I won't ask someone else to tend to a kenneled animal. Due to health problems, we have been away for up to two months in years past.
Two of the last times they have come home, I find a small tree twig stuck between the teeth in the back of Pods' mouth. He (and the wood) both smell fishy. As his head is wet and muddy, I suspect he is "noodling" for food. Snapping at crawdads or fish and biting hard enough to catch a limb too. The second time it was more than difficult to remove. I almost had to carry him to the vet.
I am now at wits end. I think my next move is investing in a training collar. The one I want has no inground fencing or posts to install but rather a sensor limiting the distance a dog can go from the transmitter. The distance allowed is about 90' from this point. I believe if I put this on Stretch, he is stubborn enough to go thru it and keep going so I have decided it will be on my tenderhearted, tenderfooted Pod.
edited to add: It seems Stretch does not want to go without Pod in tow.
Of course, I am open to suggestions of any kind but am really soliciting recommendations and opinions (if you have experience with) this kind of collar???
All input will be appreciated... at least by me ~ pod
the culprit ~ Stretch
This message was edited Mar 22, 2010 9:09 AM
