“It’s simple, really…” I found myself saying. “Your dog has a small sink. She overflows easily and doesn’t drain well…”

It made sense to me at the time, but it sounds like awful nonsense without a justification.

The sink metaphor is one I use frequently though with owner to explain why their dog isn’t coping with life.

You might very well be wondering what sinks have to do with stress and why some of our dogs don’t cope with the life they lead, or why they ‘suddenly’ seem to find life so hard.

Why are some dogs ‘bomb proof’ and some dogs on a hair trigger?

Why does it take some dogs seconds to recover from things, and other dogs seem to take days?

Why do some dogs seem to tip over more easily into fearfulness or aggression, and why isn’t it a good idea to flood your dog?

Your sink is your body. The taps are the centres of your body that control the release of hormones, neurotransmitters and other bodily chemicals. I imagine them like water –  adrenaline, cortisol – all those fancy biological bits that our brain turns on or off, that pour into our bodies and make us ready to fight, to freeze or to run away. There are certainly more taps running into our sinks than adrenaline or cortisol, but these are our ‘stress’ chemicals, that help our body deal with life.

Lots of factors decide how much pours out of those taps and how well your sink is able to handle the flow. You might, for instance, have a ‘normal’ flow of adrenaline and cortisol and your sink may just not be able to drain them quickly or efficiently. It might be too small, overflowing at the smallest fright. Tilly is a bit like that. It doesn’t take much for her to ‘flood’ – and the puddles that go with that are a much more literal vision of a ‘sink’ that floods too easily. Tilly doesn’t cope well with stress. When her sink floods due to a stressful event, she alarm barks and she pees.

You might have a fairly big sink that drains well – coping with life admirably. But what happens when your ‘taps’ release more of those chemicals than usual? You might also overflow too. One reason a body will do this is if you’re subjected to something acutely stressful. Chronic stress can do this as well – when it just accumulates and accumulates. Dogs also get illnesses such as Cushing’s – there are many reasons they may get Cushing’s. But Cushing’s tells the body to produce lots and lots of cortisol, like leaving the tap running at full flow all the time. Steroids can also have the same effect. Addison’s disease is the flip side of that coin, where not enough cortisol and adrenaline are released.

What largely dictates the size of your sink, how well you are able to cope with the flow of cortisol and adrenaline, is dependent on a number of things.

Genes are one. Bombproof parents are more likely to have bombproof babies. Breed is also a factor for dogs: it is without doubt that some dogs are more nervy and less able to cope with stressful situations or change than others.

A lot of that determines how big a sink you’re going to be born with.

Then socialisation (between 3-12 weeks and then continued more gradually up to adulthood) also influences the size of your sink and how well you cope with stress. Sadly, we know very well the risks of not socialising dogs and not inoculating them against stress… you can take a dog born with great parents and from a rock-steady breed, and if you don’t expose your dog to the world they’ll need to live in, you’ll end up with a dog whose sink size shrinks.

Sometimes, that’s just a little bit.

Heston, my shepherd, came to me aged 6 weeks. We had lots of exposure to cars and the outdoor world, not enough to people, vets, groomers and dogs, and none to stairs.

You’re wondering why I said stairs.

Didn’t cross my tiny mind that his fairly usual-sized sink might not be able to cope with stairs. Full-on fear overload because I forgot I might not live in a bungalow or have bungalow-dwelling friends all my life. Think of me carrying my 30kg dog down a spiral marble staircase as he literally pisses himself… and you’ll realise why I forgot to make his sink big enough to cope with stairs and why that posed a problem.

Habituation (getting used to things in life), desensitisation (getting used to the scary stuff gradually) and socialisation (knowing how to interact with people, dogs and other animals) are crucial influencers on the size of sink your dog ends up with.

A dog born with a fairly small sink may, for instance, expand their sink through a careful, planned, gentle programme of habituation, desensitisation and socialisation.

You have got a very brief period of time with a puppy to make the most impact – from 3 weeks of age to around 12 weeks. After this, your job is much tougher.

However, a lot of people do the early stuff (and get it wrong by accidentally overwhelming their young puppy) and forget to keep doing it – a lot of the good work you can do early on can be diminished by stopping at 13 weeks and not keeping it up at a gentle rate. But if you only start at 13 weeks – illness and vaccinations are two common reasons this step might get overlooked, but lack of understanding in puppy rearing is also a big factor too – then you are facing an uphill battle.

As we age, the size of that sink gets much harder to change. It’s much more fixed.

That’s not to say I can’t grow it gradually (I didn’t just give up to carrying Heston upstairs or accept that Tilly would pee every time anyone came to the house) but it’s a task-by-task scenario that can take weeks or months. I can’t turn that tiny hand sink into an enormous Belfast kitchen sink once that socialisation period is closed.

And that’s also not to say it can’t shrink overnight. A one-off traumatic experience can be enough to change your dog’s catering sink into a hand-basin. Those kind of events are rare though. Let’s make that clear.

So a small-sink dog might be a poorly-bred puppy-farm-raised nervous nellie of a -doodle whose owners followed vet advice to the letter and never took the dog anywhere until it was 16 weeks.

It might be a dog who started out with a great big sink, but who was over-exposed constantly to stressful situations and lived in chronic stress.

It might be a dog in pain or ill-health, suffering from acute stress.

And your big sink dog, well, we don’t put enough into making dogs with big sinks in my opinion. That takes a lot.

Rock-solid temperaments in parents, great genes, careful breeding programmes, thoughtful socialisation up to 12 weeks and beyond…

Genetics, breed and parentage fix a lot of the size of a sink. Not all, but a fair whack. Socialisation from 3 – 12 weeks fixes a lot of the rest.

What happens when that sink floods is what worries us most about dog behaviour. Aggression. Fearfulness. Running away. When our sinks flood, we’re in dis-stress. And stress affects so much more than just causing Tilly to pee when guests arrive.

Stress makes it easier to learn a fear association and turn it into a long-term memory. A flooded sink makes us hypersensitive to the environment and to remember it. It’s why we have flashbacks and develop phobias.

Stress makes it harder to unlearn fears. All the time, those flooded sinks are telling us that being safe is our number 1 concern and we should ‘save ourselves’. Fight. Flight. Freeze.

Stress sticks us in a rut and makes it harder for us to change our ways.

We go more easily to modal action patterns like chasing, circling or barking.

Hence compulsive disorders in dogs. I never see a compulsive barker without seeing a dog who isn’t coping well with stress. Nor a tail-chaser.

What do we typically do during a stressful time when something isn’t working? The same thing again, many more times, faster and more intensely— it becomes unimaginable that the usual isn’t working. If barking normally makes the bad stuff go away, it’s unimaginable that it’s not working, so our dogs bark more frequently, bark more loudly.

Stress also makes it hard to learn new responses. When we have a small sink, it makes it harder for us to learn. How rubbish is that?! The world conspires against us in so many ways. A small sink is biologically useful as it keeps you alive. It’s the bit that says ‘run away!’ if you’re in a war zone, or ‘fight!’ if you’re a mum protecting your children. It’s not biologically useful if you’ve had a car crash and now you have a panic attack every time anyone pulls up quickly at a junction. That last example is me, by the way. My sink shrank exponentially when a guy cut across me and caused a car accident.

Stress also lowers our inhibitions. It makes me want to get in street brawls with drivers who came to a squealing stop at a junction or pull out too soon onto a roundabout. Sometimes, I’m physically restraining myself from getting out of the car to yell at someone whose driving was marginally worse than the majority.

We see this in dogs too: dogs who usually have really good bite inhibition whose sink floods and then suddenly bite; dogs who normally have great recall and panic when they hear a gunshot; dogs who jump up more or bark more when they’re stressed out.

Sustained stress also makes us really bad at assessing risk. A guy coming to a roundabout at 5 miles faster than he should have, and being 2m closer than I’m happy with is not endangering my life. It’d be a fender bender at worst. Yet I react as if he’s got me at gunpoint and he’s Howling Mad Murdock in the A Team. A distant gunshot is nothing to most dogs. A storm isn’t life threatening. But small sink dogs aren’t good at assessing the risk of these.

Small, overflowing sinks are a recipe for displacement aggression as well. When I was fifteen, I watched a guy called Oggy punch a wall until his fist bled. Displaced aggression. I used to come home from work on a Friday and get into a fight with my boyfriend. Displaced aggression.

And we wonder why our dogs will turn around and bite us when stressed?

I was thinking about it the other day – every single contact a dog has made with their teeth on my body – has been ‘unpredictable’ in that there was no growling, no hard eye, no closed mouth, no lunges, no snarls. I’m sensible around dogs who have the slightest sign of fear or aggression. But I’ve had a fair few nips in over-excitement and on leaving the kennels or in handling dogs who are in pain. No warning kind of nips. Not loads and loads. I’m not some fool-hardy bite freak. But I’ve been on the receiving end of that displaced aggression in dogs enough times to know that stressful situations (leaving kennels, needing treatment, being in pain, being handled) can cause lowered bite inhibition and displaced aggression. Small sinks at work.

So when I say a dog has a small sink, what I mean is they don’t have the genes or the experience to cope with everything life throws at them. They ‘flood’ easily. Aggression or fearfulness are easy, automatic responses for them at times of stress.

Now you don’t have to live with this. Neither does your dog. You don’t have to say ‘oh well… small sink… can’t cope…’

You can do so much. You can limit triggers and stressors – the things that get the chemicals flooding in in the first place. You can also continue a gentle programme of gradual systematic desensitisation or exposure therapy. Those two things together can help your small sink dog cope with what life throws at them. Creating a safe, secure environment, teaching your dog autonomy and using both mental and physical exercise to help you ‘unblock’ the sink can also help your dog become more independent.

The very best way I’ve found of overcoming a small sink is to build a partnership. A dog who sees you as a secure base, who trusts that harm will never happen when you are there and who has a history of being safe when with you and when at home is a dog who is able to learn new strategies to cope with life. A dog who trusts you has a built-in overflow mechanism to help them cope. You. We all do better in life when we can depend on our friends and family. It’s no different for a dog. The right social systems and networks are enormous confidence boosts, and can help build resilience in your dog. You’re never going to make your Nervous Nellie into a Bombproof Brian, but the beauty of behaviour is that is doesn’t have to be fixed forever. Being realistic about what your dog can cope with and becoming a trusted base for them is a lifeline for many anxious, fearful or aggressive dogs. Life may have handed them a small sink, but it’s very helpful when your best friend is a plumber.

Is that one metaphor too far?

I think it probably is!

It’s no secret I love the oldies – Since 2014, I’ve always had a pensioner, or two, or three, milling about the house. Right now, I’ve got Miss Flika Flirty Knickers, whose knee and ankle joints are not at their best. She came to the shelter in pretty poor health – missing eye, cystitis, kidney infection, arthritis and she’d had a stroke one night. I didn’t think she’d still be here nine months later, but she’s still rampaging through retirement without any sign of slowing down.

I’ve also got my little Tilly Popper, who came to me as a 5 year old some 8 years ago, and has been plagued by almost 2 years of ear problems. Started with mites and fungus, cleared up, got other things, and finally in April, a virulent antibiotic-resistant infection that we’re fighting hard. Sadly, with a heart murmur, it’s not easy to clean it out – and the only operation worth doing may not work anyway. Tough call. She had a stroke a month ago, and then another last week. But we’ll see.

Today’s post is about Amigo, my old boy who died back in March. His old age crept up on me after Tobby died in 2016. Barely 2 months after I’d lost Tobby to degenerative neurological problems, Amigo had a stroke one night.

His recovery was slow. Although he was only supposed to be nine years old (I’d adopted him when he was 6, but he came from the pound, so we had no idea really how old he was), the vet realised he was much, much older than that. His balance came and went. His breathing got worse – he had two bullets in his chest from his first life – and pulmonary fibrosis set in. Most of his hearing went with the stroke, if he’d had much before, and it marked a real deterioration in both his mental and physical health.

During the day, he was fine. Happy to trot on walks, if a little happier to bugger off. More time on lead and less time romping through fields. He was slower, too, but not noticeably. Amigo was always the one who told me it was breakfast and it was dinner time. He didn’t bark more, he didn’t seem lost. He just seemed a little older, if anything. As sweet as he’d ever been.

His appetite didn’t change much, although I thought I’d lost him in September 2017 when he had a bout of colitis. We x-rayed him after an ultrasound and I was expecting cancer. I think he sensed the relief in the room when the vet said it was colitis, and he jumped off the x-ray table with all the vigour of a dog who hadn’t just seemed like he was at death’s doorstep.

But it was the night-times that were tough. He’d sleep in the evenings without any issue – happy to curl up next to me while I worked. Come 11pm and he would not settle. The pacing would start. Then the panting. Some nights, he would pace and pace until 2 or 3 in the morning. And he was always up by 5am. After 11pm, he changed. It was like he wasn’t himself any more. He’d try and get in other dogs’ beds – while they were in them! – and even then he wouldn’t settle. Being deaf didn’t help – the others were growling and he couldn’t hear them. I could let him out – he didn’t want to go out. I could pet him – he wasn’t bothered. He just wandered and wandered.

Eventually, I got a salt lamp. Whilst I’m not some ancient hippy believing every alternative health story, the pink light was better than leaving lamps on all over the house so that Amigo didn’t fall on things or crash into other dogs. It was certainly better than trying to confine him, which made him much more distressed. It was also better for my sleep than leaving lamps on. Whether it’s hocus pocus or not, there is some small-scale evidence that these can help with mood in animals. And if it’s hocus pocus, the low light wasn’t offensive so I could get some sleep at least.

That lamp also stopped him crashing into other dogs, at least. And on the nights he had an accident, it also stopped me slipping in it afterwards. Always a bonus. Obviously, keep them out of reach of dogs tripping on them or licking them – that goes without saying.

Because it was related to sleep, I also tried some sleep aids with the guidance of my vet. We didn’t want to sedate him, so it wasn’t a case of giving him a sedative like valium (although I had some of that here for other health issues for him) Melatonin had some effect and it certainly fitted with other things, like his alopecia. Don’t try it without checking with your vet: there are potential side-effects especially for diabetic dogs or those with a heart condition.

A thundershirt and Ttouch also helped. With the melatonin and a few other things, a combination of massage, some Ttouch movements, melatonin and a thundershirt, we all got the best night’s sleep. He went right through from 11pm to 6am without a wander. I think managing decline can be a lot like that – a combination of thing can accumulate.

A vet friend of mine had also recommended MSM for another of my dogs who was suffering from arthritis. He says that a lot of the supplements we give are for mobility but are not anti-inflammatory as such, and offer no pain relief. It’s not a medical anti-inflammatory, that’s for sure, but the nights when I’d given him MSM seemed to be the most peaceful ones. There are some small-scale studies which are ‘limited but encouraging’ and it certainly seemed to help with both his hair, his movement and his night-time restlessness.

There are other sleep aids you may want to try out in discussion with a holistic veterinary practitioner. Valerian and passionflower were two I tried. I didn’t see any difference, but that’s just one dog. Zylkène, Nutracalm, Pet Remedy, Adaptil and Anxitane may also help with anxiety, and it’s worth checking them out with your vet.

Also, like a baby, I figured it was also about poor sleep training. He was sleeping when he should have been active in the early mornings and at dusk, and then not sleeping through the night. So I made sure he had a good amount of physical exercise – not too much because I didn’t want him restless because he was hyped up on adrenaline or because his knackered old body hurt – but I tried to make sure he had a little trot about about an hour before bed. I also made sure he had plenty of mental enrichment, and I’ll tell you about that later.

However, it’s important to remember that you can tire your dog out and you can give them natural (or pharmaceutical) sedatives and sleep aids, but it doesn’t get to the underlying causes. Sometimes that’s canine cognitive dysfunction (and you can get supplements for that too) but often it’s a physical thing. When I could see on the x-ray the shrinking size of Amigo’s stomach as his lungs expanded as a result of fibrosis, his colitis was without doubt worsened by the fact that his whole body was out of sync. He often had tummy ache. I wonder how often the wandering and restlessness was caused by gastro-intestinal problems. I had trapped wind last night (overshare!) and I was restless.

Sometimes that wandering is caused by pain, so a comfortable bed can help with that. That said, both of my oldies who’ve had crippling arthritis have both been ‘go to bed  – stay in bed’ types. I often wondered whether Amigo’s bed hopping was related to the need to find the most comfortable sleeping spot.  Sometimes I think we overlook the physical problems that may be causing our dogs restlessness, thinking it’s cognitive decline when in fact, they’re just uncomfortable. Pain relief can be a really important factor in treating sleeplessness.

That said, many dogs do suffer from cognitive decline, and pharmaceuticals do exist to help with that. Sedatives aren’t the only option. Anti-anxiety medication or anti-depressants can be prescribed by your vet if they suspect it may help. Remember these are not sedatives and they won’t change your dog overnight. Prozac and Selgian are two pharmaceuticals you may find your vet prescribing to help with other cognitive issues.

Just as mental enrichment and stimulation can slow down decline in humans, so it can in animals. Where his body couldn’t cope with physical activity in the same way as it had when he was younger, I put in lots of mental enrichment. From Sprinkles to Kongs, food toys to snuffle mats, Pickpockets to puzzle toys, hide-and-seek to scent work, trick training and husbandry training kept his mind busy and allowed me to keep him occupied as well as track decline. Forgetting learned tricks is a quick way to see that decline is setting in.

We played lots of games outside to keep him occupied, and lots of slow ‘sniffari’ walks too.

Mental enrichment not only helps re-train your dog to better sleep patterns, but also uses up some of that mental energy they don’t use up through physical activity as they used to. It also keeps them thinking, seeking, puzzling. It keeps them curious. It was a vital part of our old age regime and continues to be so for Flika and Tilly. Just because they spend a lot of time asleep doesn’t mean they are well-occupied.

It’s also all very well to speak about how wonderful it is to love a dog with canine cognitive dysfunction, but we also have to remember that it is hard. We are not saints. It’s often frustrating and depressing. Taking care of yourself is vital. If that means finding a pet-sitter so you can catch up on some sleep yourself, then do it. Some of the best nights I had were when I had taken all those sleep supplements and left Amigo, securely, to wander. It’s a long journey with a sad destination, and that’s not made any easier if you are exhausted and upset. Remember to look after yourself. In the long run, Amigo’s decline happened over 14 months. That’s a long time for any human to be sleep-deprived. Be kind to yourself and to your dog. Use sitters and use your friends/family to help you out: you would if you were dealing with a newborn.

Finally, Eileen Anderson’s wonderful book, Remember Me? is an absolute must-read for anyone with an ageing dog. You can buy it on Kindle if you don’t want a physical copy. For well-researched information about diet, housing, medication and much, much more, it’s a real treasure to have at your side as you navigate the problems that age-related cognitive decline can pose.

This post is the final one in a series of three about keeping your dog safe.

The first post, keeping your dog safe on walks, is largely aimed at dogs who like walks but who don’t like certain things that happen on walks, such as strangers appearing or other dogs charging up to them. It’s also aimed at dogs who treat the outdoor world as a picnic buffet and like to ingest all sorts of things they shouldn’t. It’s aimed at dogs with predatory drive that isn’t manageable and dogs who are fearful but are in the process of being gradually and gently habituated or desensitised to the outside world. It’s for car chasers and bike chasers, jogger-haters and scooter-fans. Reading a sad story about a dog who impaled itself this week during a walk, it’s also for dogs in high risk areas such as traffic, dangerous wildlife or man-made risks like traps. Deaf dogs, blind dogs or dogs with dementia would also benefit from the suggestions, no doubt.

The second post, keeping your dog safe in the home, is aimed at door dashers, family and household incidents, dogs with separation anxiety, dogs who are aggressive with family members or other family animals and also puppies. For newly arrived dogs who’ve never lived inside, it’s also useful.

Today, I’m looking at how you can keep your dog safe in the garden. For dogs who may escape or dig out, who have high prey drive or like chasing skirt, it’s a must. As with everything, there are times when management is your main goal and there are times when teaching is more sensible. For 14-year-old skirt chasing Tobby, it was a bit of both. When you’re 14, there’s a time investment involved in teaching new behaviours. Management may sometimes involve financial costs, but it can be used at any point in a dog’s life.

Why might our garden be dangerous for our dog?

If you’ve got an escape artist, it’s often easier to escape from a garden than a house.

If you’ve got a digger, they can break claws, tunnel to victory or unearth roots or plants that could poison them.

If you have a pedigree dog that is a status animal, an unsupervised garden can be an easy place to take them from.

People outside may also open gates inadvertently where they wouldn’t open your front door.

If you’ve got a territorial dog, a fence may not be as secure as you think it is in terms of protecting passers-by.

Also, whilst you may have the most perfectly trained pet who’d never wander off site, it doesn’t stop other animals getting in. When you’ve seen your 45kg shepherd having a fight with a badger, you realise that fences are not just about keeping things IN, but also keeping things OUT. Badgers, by the way, even old, sick ones, can cause a lot of damage. Learned that by experience. You don’t have to live in more exotic parts to meet animals that might decide your dog is a tasty snack, that’s for sure.

And we have all heard tales of animals poisoned by food thrown over fences, or, here in rural France, animals shot by hunters accidentally.

Lots of reasons then that your outdoor space could do with a bit of thought.

Also, we tend to adapt our houses to suit our dogs when we’re out. A couple of chewed books and boots and I got really, really good at tidying up. An overturned bin one day and I was vigilant about putting the bin under lock and key. If we’re in and our dogs are in the house, we tend to be supervising them – passively if nothing else. If we’re on a walk, again, our dogs tend to be on a lead or within earshot. Certainly, they should be, even though I know this is not always the case.

But we leave our dogs unsupervised a lot out in the garden.

In rural France, a lot of dogs are outside, unsupervised 24 hours a day.

For many dogs, even a slight boundary is enough to keep them in, even if it doesn’t stop other things coming into the garden. A 1m high chicken-wire fence is all I’ve got along one of my boundaries. Any determined dog would make short work of that.

My first question for escapees is over or under?

Are they jumpers or diggers?

I prefer jumpers. So much easier.

Shelssie was a jumper. This 30-cm-high staffie cross could scale a 3m fence. I saw her. A flat, featureless fence that my champion rock-climber friend would have trouble finding a foothold on. She could easily jump 2m and even with a grille across the top of the kennel run, if unsupervised, she would spend her time jumping and headbutting weak spots until she made a gap or got a loose bit, and then she was off. So a roof kind of slowed her down, but didn’t stop her. I’m pretty sure she could have scaled 4 or 5 metres even.

Butter wouldn’t melt, would it?

Don’t believe me?

Now I’m not a fan of dogs training like this – oh the physical damage they can do to themselves! – but is it really any better for Miss Shelssie who freelanced? Forget this dog’s 2-hour training sessions and treadmills, Shelssie practised whenever she was unsupervised, which was a good 10 hours a day sometimes.

Coyote roll bars are a good start – not easy if you have 300m of perimeter fencing, but nobody says you can’t fence off a smaller space for your dogs.

So a 2 metre smooth-surfaced fence with roll-bars and an inward-facing 45° section at the top will help manage most hardened jumpers.

Digging is tougher, but digging takes time unless you’ve built your fence on loosely-packed dry sand or on fresh compost. A hard substrate is tougher to dig out from. The easiest thing to do is lay a hard substrate – cement is also a possibility – and to cover it with solid chicken wire to about a metre out, and then stones or gravel on top. You can put ground cover plants as a hedge. You can also buy rigid fencing and bury it low into the ground.

I fear for this guy’s feet in flip flops with bolt cutters right there, let me tell you. I need to do another post for Safety in the garden for Aussies in flip-flops. Dude, you live in a country with deadly snakes and spiders anyhow. Get some proper footwear.

Anyway…

You want something flat and wide from the fence, like a metre of chicken wire, and you want to go down, like reinforcing bars for reinforced concrete if you need something tough.

Again, if it’s too expensive, go smaller. Make a smaller penned area.

The most important thing is to tackle the motivation behind the digging or escaping.

To chase? Cats? Moles? Rabbits? I don’t need to tell you about the Boston terrier who burrowed through to next door, nipped into the neighbours’ house and got himself a guinea pig snack.

Territorial behaviour or competition from other dogs?

Fear and the desire to escape? Separation anxiety?

Boredom?

The desire to mate?

When you know what’s motivating this behaviour, you can then start to deal with the cause. So bored animals need some canine enrichment or occupation. Animals who are chasing need to learn some impulse control and to be supervised. Territorial behaviour can be dealt with through desensitisation or counterconditioning programmes, as can fear. Mating can easily be solved with a quick trip to the vet.

Supervision is also crucial. Most dogs don’t know not to escape. And you might tell them off, but punishing a dog only suppresses the behaviour, it does not eliminate the need behind it. It just makes the dog more likely to try to escape in your absence. I always ask if the dog is trying to escape when supervised. That is a different thing altogether. But the vast majority of dogs are escaping when they’re unsupervised which means they need supervision and a gradual, trained programme of settling when unsupervised. Don’t just expect your dog to do nothing for 10 hours whilst your at work. Build up to it and start small.

For Tobby the skirt chaser, we got to the point where he could be outside unsupervised and he didn’t bugger off through tiny holes despite advanced arthritis… although he was very good at knowing my head wasn’t in it and I’d then be chasing my Littlest Hobo through the lanes.

Of course, you don’t want to supervise all the time, so you really need to address those emotional needs to escape or dig in other ways. And you need to train them to stay inside the fence at all costs. That photo was me practising with the gate. I’m waving leads and chicken at them. That’s what I want.  A rock-solid ‘no, this is my giant big den and I’m not budging no matter how you tempt me’. Essentially, what you are doing is ‘stay on mat’ training, just with a garden rather than a mat.

But get to the emotions and train something appropriate.

Are they searching to get out to exercise their predatory habits? Scentwork, impulse control work and play are particularly helpful at putting an on-switch and an off-switch on these behaviours and giving your dog plenty of stimulation in appropriate ways.

If your dog is seeking to get out to give your neighbours and their dogs a piece of his mind, you really could do with a trainer or behaviourist who can work with you on counterconditioning or exposure therapy to help your dog feel less threatened by what happens outside the fence.

If your dog is afraid and is seeking to get out when there are loud noises or things happen in the home, working on providing a safe, quiet environment and a place for them to retreat to is crucial, as well as working on their resilience and confidence.

Please bear in mind that the emotional drives behind these behaviours can be much stronger than any punishment you may choose. Invisible electric fencing or physical electric fencing may be little deterrent at all. In fact, for aggressive dogs it runs the risk of making their behaviour worse, and for fearful dogs, they may then be reluctant to return home. Shock fencing causes more problems than it solves.

Dogs may also try to get out because they are bored, in which case your dog needs to learn how to settle in your absence and or you to make sure that you are not asking too much of your dog. Occupation, scentwork, mental games and activities should help with that too.

And dogs may also seek to get out for company and companionship. Getting another pet is not a solution, but doggy daycare, dog parks, playdates and dog sitters are one way to both manage your dog’s needs and also help make sure they are met. If your dog is not neutered, it is something to consider as to whether those needs are sexual in nature and whether neutering would curb their desire to roam in search of a mate.

So, let’s talk worst-case scenario. You’ve got a dog that, for one reason or another, has horrible aggression issues and the potential to do great damage. You’d like to be able to let them off-lead outside and you have the space to do it, but you don’t want to have to supervise (or you can’t) 24 hours a day. Or you have the world’s most persistent skirt chaser and having them altered isn’t an option. Or you’ve adopted a hound who has a million ways to get out. Or a Shelssie.

For one reason or another, you absolutely need a secure garden space.

How can you create that?

Besides a secure fence, a smooth wall is less likely to help dogs go over. Buried fence panels will stop diggers making such an easy task of it. Roll bars/45° inwards-facing fencing attached to the top will also help. ‘Airlocks’ or double gate systems can help with gate dashers. You will need a deadlock on gates to stop unwitting guests opening them by mistake. For dogs who don’t pose an aggression risk, high-vis collars/harnesses and a GPS tracker will help you locate quickly and also help motorists see them to avoid accidents on the road. Bear in mind, collars can easily be slipped and can also catch dogs onto branches, which also poses a risk. Whilst a dog may get caught up in a harness, it won’t strangle them. A high-vis escape-proof harness for all outdoor time will be better than a collar. For dogs who pose a significant aggression risk, it’s imperative that your dog is secure.

Just as an aside, if your dog is that aggressive, you will be working with someone, I know. But some things to bear in mind from fatal dog attacks…

The risks of a fatal dog bite are higher with dogs who a) live outside on a permanent or semi-permanent basis b) uncastrated males that are 25kg plus c) in groups

The victims are often physically vulnerable (young or old) neighbours or known to the family (rather than family members or strangers) rather than strangers. That, though, is for fatal dog bites, not the 99.9999% of bites which don’t kill. It is not to say that your dog is more likely to bite a child, just that it will be more serious if it does.

I think, though, that there is a lesson in there about dogs in yards.

Dogs shouldn’t live in yards if you expect them to be good ‘people’ dogs. Although socialisation is largely over by 12-14 weeks, you need to keep that socialisation going with strangers and with familiar humans through their teenage years and not deprive them of regular contact with humans in their adulthood. Becoming a yard dog or ‘resident’ dog who lives out in a yard with little contact with humans is not a good way for a dog to live. No wonder they lose touch with how humans behave! 10 years in the countryside has made me much more edgy in cities. The noise, lack of space and bad manners make me grumpy in ways they never did when I lived in the city. We lose touch with the world and with how people behave if we aren’t regularly part of it.

The other lesson is that if you have an aggressive dog who you like to give garden time to, as well you might, don’t think that the biggest threat is to people the dog doesn’t know. I suspect we lower our guard with people who know the dog, thinking the dog will tolerate them as they tolerate us. So when you’re thinking of how to keep your postman safe from accidentally releasing your dog, make sure you think too about access from the house. It’s all very well preventing your neighbours’ kids from accidentally getting in to your garden from the street, or stopping your dog getting out onto the street, but think too of how you stop grandchildren, visiting children, guests and grandmas getting from the house into the garden, or your dog from getting from the garden to the house.

This is from bite expert Jim Crosby: “Dogs belonging to grandparents or other family not living with the child full time are the most likely of the family dogs to have a negative encounter, whether a full fatality or a simple dog bite. This usually indicates a lack of frequent social contact between the dog and the particular child, coupled with a relaxation of supervision because the dog is seen as part of the family.”

I think that’s a really important message. When you set up your secure garden, make sure you don’t forget security between the house and the garden. It’s all very well protecting Joe Public from your dog, or your dog from Joe Public/coyotes/wolves/bears and the likes, but the real dangers are often likely to be ones in the home.