Before I get into this post, I need to express that Morgan is actually a REALLY GREAT dog. I know recently when I mention her, it's all about the chaos and destruction she's caused (the garden, my plants, the fences). But really, she's just a puppy. She's wonderful, we love and adore her. She is very well behaved in the house. She's mostly outgrown the naughty chewing phase indoors. Her worst offense is counter surfing, which we are working on. She doesn't even steal the kids snacks anymore. She barks at the back door to go outside and barks to be let back in. Morgan sleeps in her crate at night and when we aren't home to keep her out of trouble. She's learning good things at her weekly dog training classes. And most importantly, Morgan is AMAZING with the boys. She's so gentle with them, she adores them, we never have to worry about her interacting with them. There's 100% trust, even when we've literally caught them jumping on her while she sleeps and she barely bats an eye. She thinks the world of them and she's completely calm in the constant chaos they create.
Outside... outside is where Morgan's naughty side is unleashed. Literally - she's still terrible at walks and won't stop pulling no matter what we try. In the backyard, destruction reigns. She will shred stolen cardboard boxes and plastic bags out of the recycling. Chewing up the boys frisbees, beach buckets, bubble wands. Hiding baseballs in the bushes, stripping bushes of leaves, knocking plants over, climbing tables. Shredding the deer netting around the garden, digging holes in the grass, digging holes in my raised bed garden, digging holes along the fence (including the garden beds with my new plants), digging up my tulip bulbs. Running through the mud, hunting critters, attempting to escape, causing mayhem. Lots and lots of mayhem.
Backstory: Miss Morgan Mayhem was a rescue puppy, her litter was fostered next door on the other side of the wood fence (on the right side of our yard when facing the garage). Our neighbors still foster occasionally still and have 4 dogs of their own. There's a lot of crazy dog action going on on the other side of those wood planks.
When Morgan was smaller she liked to escape under the chain link fence on the left side into another neighbor's yard and wander. It was stressful, but eventually we effectively blocked the chain link fence escape routes. Morgan then turned her attention to the wood privacy fence where 4 of her doggy friends live on the other side. While she can't break through the wooden panels, she can dig under it. So can her doggy friends on the other side. And if left to their own devices long enough, they can also push the fence pieces out, popping the nails and leaving a gap in the fence that works everyone up into an even bigger frenzy of barking and doggy noses poking through and tails wagging.
When the garden plants were big in the summer, Morgan mostly avoided the garden part of the fence line, opting for the grass further back for her digging adventures. We blocked each hole and my neighbors on the other side did the same. But then I started digging in the garden to add in the new plants, exposing dirt and new smells that triggered her digging instinct. And as the plants died off with each frost, there was more and more area exposed.
I barricaded the fence with every last spare paver (including some I was using as garden borders) to stop the digging. I blocked off the garden flowers the best I could with literally anything I had handy - gates, chairs, spare trellis, rotted porch railing, spare fence, etc.. Morgan did everything she could to work around the barricades. More holes were dug, escapes were made, with the help of the neighbor's dogs digging on their side... plants trampled, roots damaged. She even went under the rose bush with the giant thorns - and she has the scratches to prove it. I was so frustrated.
In the demo of the existing raised bed garden, we had all this spare chicken wire fencing that we dug up. It wasn't in good enough shape for the new garden, but I realized it was a perfect barrier to deter the digging - at least where the garden plants are. I knew I could hold it down with the pavers we lined up along the edge and staple it to the fence panels, as well as using inexpensive ground stakes. We had just enough to go from the rosebush to the blueberry bushes, down the whole line. It won't stop the dogs from digging on the other side, but it would make digging in the garden beds more difficult for Morgan. Hopefully with some time she will learn it's useless to bother trying.
Here's the fence right now... the chicken wire is hard to see in photos but it's there! What you can really see is all the things we're using as barricades.
I'm using the raised bed garden obelisk to block a giant hole she doesn't want to leave alone. For better or worse, anenomes are aggressive enough to fill back in here.
In the spring we'll take up some/half/most of the pavers and just leave the short ground staples and fence staples. And I say that with the assumption that after living with the fencing for that long, she'll be uninterested in digging there anyway and won't need all the weight of those pavers for extra wire barrier stability. This way nothing will be blocking the plants/bulbs/pretty things from coming up through the holes. We'll cover everything with a a nice layer of mulch too so that we won't see ugly wiring anymore either. (Right now things are so ugly!)
Step 2 will be a physical barrier across the garden beds as a physical reminder for where she's welcome and where she's not. It will take some training not to cross it, but if there's no reason to cross (like not being able to dig), it will hopefully work in combination. I like the look of this one, and it covers 26 ft per package and it has good reviews. It's still pricey for the amount of garden we have, but I think I might be able to combine it with a cheap wire one further back.
I'm not sure when to do step 2. Part of me thinks, the sooner the better, but then I also wonder if we should wait. If we do it now, the ground isn't frozen yet and we'll have the winter to train her to stay out of the garden bed area. But... will the freezing and refreezing of the ground hurt the border fence? Will it get damaged or knocked over in the snow? Will Morgan even understand not being allowed in there when there are no plants (and potentially one big snow plain anyway)?
Lastly there's the back part of the fence where the grass meets the wood fence (after the garden beds end. Right now we still have sporadic barricades up, but I'm hoping the chicken wire could be a long term solution back here too. We have to also figure out a prettier option along the chain link, but it's too flexible for chicken wire to work over there (really we need giant rocks...)
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