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Post by MiasDad on Sept 8, 2008 12:41:08 GMT -5
I just had a question about leaving our pit in the yard when we are not at home. Currently we put her on a 50' overhead cable with a 10' leadline. She gets a little excited when we put her on, so we stay with her until she settles down before we leave. When we return we make sure she completely settles down again before we take her off. (got this tip from reading the dog whisperer website.) My question is how long do should we use the lead line? Our yard is completely fenced in with a 7' high chainlink fence. We put her on the line because I read on this site that they are escape artists and with her being new to her surroundings we don't want her to get out and get into trouble. Will she ever be comfortable and/or conditioned enough to just stay in the yard without the line? We have left her in the yard without it while home and she hasn't tried to escape, but it is reassuring knowing that she is secure when we are not around.
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Post by maryellen on Sept 8, 2008 14:43:46 GMT -5
if she tries to get out she will hang her self on the line.. she can also be stolen, poisoned, shot, stabbed, etc when left outside alone unattended.. please properly contain her in the house in a crate or kennel if she is crate trained. not all pit bulls are escape artists.
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Post by RealPitBull on Sept 8, 2008 17:13:09 GMT -5
I strongly discourage leaving any dogs - but esp. Pit Bulls - alone in yards. It's not safe at all, too many things could go wrong, and with this breed and associated paranoia, not to mention all the thugs attracted to these dogs, there are way too many possibilities for a problem.
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Post by MiasDad on Sept 8, 2008 19:23:55 GMT -5
We tried leaving her inside with disastrous results. Even when we were only gone for an hour or so, we came home to find that she had pooped all over or had wreaked havoc in the house. She can jump amazingly high with no effort whatsoever, so nothing is safe. We did get a crate that we use if we are only going to be gone for an hour or two, but leaving her in there for several hours seems worse to us than leaving her in the yard. We have a large secluded back yard which has big trees, bushes and a fence surrounding it (and also some poison ivy around the outside--not deliberate, mind you  , and so we think the possibility of someone getting to her is pretty much nil. We doubt that she would even try to get out if we didn't have her on a line, but know that if we were wrong even once, the consequences could be awful. The line we have her on doesn't reach the fence, and so there's no way she could hang herself. We would love to be able to leave her in the house by herself, but for now it doesn't seem to be a viable option for us. |
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Post by maryellen on Sept 8, 2008 21:33:10 GMT -5
you can leave her in the house by training her first with a crate, then after she is fine in the crate you leave her for a few minutes at a time and increase the time slowly. it takes training to teach a dog to not destroy a house. all my dogs had to earn their house privileges from crates, and i started out very slow and we worked our way up. since you just got her, you must give her structure, training and boundaries to teach her the rules.. they dont come premade with knowing the rules of every house , they have to learn the rules. hell it took rufus 5 years to be able to be in the house loose as he would chew everything, so he was crated and we worked on short times loose.
i would never leave my dogs outside unattended, too much can happen too fast, even getting tangled up in the line can happen.. you would be amazed at how dogs can get themselves in difficult situations..
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Post by tracilg on Sept 9, 2008 12:48:20 GMT -5
Miasdad, I used to think crates were mean until we started using one for Babe. It really has saved our sanity - and our house.
The crate doesn't prevent her from standing, turning around, sitting or sleeping - it just confines her to one place while she does any of those things. We put a nice thick cusion in there, so she's plenty comfortable.
And what we found that it helped TREMENDOUSLY with Babe's anxiety issues - which is what was causing her to tear up the house and poop everywhere to begin with. Three-plus months later, she's mellow enough now that she can be left inside while we go outside, sometimes for hours, to do yard work, etc. and she behaves without being in the crate.
We are going to start leaving her out of the crate for small blocks of time (like while grocery shop) and build up to a point where we don't need to lock her in it when we leave anymore. But will probably keep it around anyway because it's one of her favorite places to sleep now.
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, and so we think the possibility of someone getting to her is pretty much nil. We doubt that she would even try to get out if we didn't have her on a line, but know that if we were wrong even once, the consequences could be awful.
I look forward to learning much here