Bloody dog!!

[demi]

The dog was barking in the garden last night. I suspected it was a cat through the fence she was barking at. At 5:30, as she was still barking, my husband went out to see what was going on and found her in the veggy patch jumping up and down all over the beans and sweet potatoes going mad and looking up the mullberry tree.
The neibours' cat had misfortunatly wandered into our garden and the dog chased it up the tree, jumping over ( or i should say jumping on top of and flattening) the fence from the veggy patch, and distroying everything! ( she's a St Bernard so she can cause a fair amount of distruction!)
My husband was shouting he was going to take the dog and leave her somwhere! I protested and said he was being reduculous of course, but hes been at the farm all day in a huff because hes really mad at her.
I went out to fix the damage. The beans were compleatly distroyed and i just pulled them all out, dug the ground and planted some very late carrot seeds. The sweet potatoes were half trampled, but unfortunatly it was the most growen ones which suffered the most. But iv earthed them all up and tried to fix them as best i can. Lets hope they're OK.
We've had lots of problems with this dog. As much as i love her and would never give her up, she's got a really high chase drive and just about dislocates my sholder on walks when she spots a cat. And she barks and pulls at other dogs (theres hundreds of stray dogs here its impossible to avoid them, some of them have attacked her before which is why i think she gets so worked up) And she can be funny with people she doesnt know who are nervous arround dogs, but completly fine with people who are comfertable and dont bother her and she'll even go up to get patted from these people, where as if a nervous person tried to pat her she'd start barking at them. The fact that she is so big make controlling her the biggest problem. She's 4 years old this month and still has the energy of a 6 month old pup, but shes got the strength of a fully grown massive breed. I think the next dog we get will be a wee rescued street dog.

[yvette]

Oh no - and to think I have been complaining about snails and slugs on my veggies, that's nothing compared with an excited St Bernard! Hopefully your husband will have calmed down a bit by the time he comes home - especially as you have tidied everything up so quickly.

[diggernotdreamer]

Hi Demi, have had a good bit of experience with large breed dogs, had Great Danes and did Great Dane rescue for 9 years. One of the best things I have found for walking large breed dogs is a thing called a Lupi, it gives you complete control over the dog so you can control with one hand, there is also the Halti which is also excellent but needs to be gotten used to, the Lupi is an immediate fix. Secondly, is she neutered, this can have a lot of bearing on temperament, we had this a lot with the Dane bitches and having them spayed helped a lot. I think St Bernards can be a bit stroppy, knew a few like that, but new a few lovely ones too. I keep lots of animals, chickens, ducks, pigs, alpaca's, dog, I have fenced off my vegetable garden to avoid damage, just a simple post and wire affair with a gate which has solved a lot of tears and expletives and ruined crops. Poor girl thought she was being very brave and helpful seeing off the pesky cat.

[chickenchargrill]

Naww. We use the Halti, couldn't get on with the Lupi. Absolutely amazing and don't know how we'd cope without it. I definitely couldn't walk Lulu with the the boy in his pushchair before we bought one as she has collie attention problems.

We had a Lulu shaped hole in our veggie patch fence last year too, we lost a lot of veggies and grass thanks to her. Now there's a fence with lots of wire as back up, no problems unless someone forgets to shut the gate. ;-)

[Mustardseedmama]

Also dogs like to have a "job", and she thinks her job is guarding---you, your place, and your veg patch. When we got our GSD he was already 7 months old. Way more dog than I had ever bargained for (my Sweetie wanted a German Shepherd, not me!), and he had enormous amounts of energy. I found then best way to keep him from misbehaving was to run him really well 2 or 3 times a day.

So, we'd take him out with a couple of tennis balls, stand at the top of the slope that goes toward our pond, and throw those things as hard and as far as we could down the slope. He'd charge down there and get the ball, race back up the hill, and when he was almost to us we'd throw the other one down, (he'd drop the first one, excited to be off again)...etc,...until he came back up walking and lay down. Energy spent, he calmed right down and was a very happy boy!

[demi]

I do use a Halti on her, there's no way I could walk her through the streets with all the stray dogs and cats without it! The worst thing is if she spots somthing she wants to chase before i do and catches me off gard. She's pulled the lead right out my hand many times and ran off after somthing. Last time she did it in the park a few weeks ago. No idea what she was chasing but she got down the embankment at the edge of the park and half way accross the road ( thank god there were no cars at the time!) with me trying to keep calm and shout her back with an extied voice. She suddleny just stopped on the road, turned back on her self and started charging back towards me, making a loop round me and i managed to grabb her as she came round.
I can't let her off lead anywhere there's other people or dogs. I have to take her up the mountain away from the town to let her go, but I walk her on the lead round the town in the center and to the park regularly. I try to get her used to other dogs but I think because ever since she had all her jags and i could start taking her out we are greeted by barking street dogs on virtulally every corner defending their 'patch' and barking after us, following us, and even attacking her on a few occations! So I think she feels like she needs to bark to defend herself, like a kind of 'I'll bite you before you can bite me' kind of thing.
The best way i deal with it is to walk quickly with her through the streets so she doesnt get a chance to take in everything and spot evey dog arround. Generally, if the other dog isnt bothering with her she'll just huff a bit when she sees it and i'll be walking quickly past the other dog and she'll just come past it without much fuss. But if the other dog is barking and chasing after us thats a big problem. I try to avoid dogs I know will be at certain places that bark at her, but its impossible to go a walk without running into any street dogs.

I'v not heard of a Lupi, but I'm fine with the Halti.

The veg patch is fenced in with flimsy chicken wire and wooden sticks as fence posts. She just jumped on it and flattened it to get in! She's not bothered trying to get in before, this was just to get after the cat!

[demi]

I do use a Halti on her, there's no way I could walk her through the streets with all the stray dogs and cats without it! The worst thing is if she spots somthing she wants to chase before i do and catches me off gard. She's pulled the lead right out my hand many times and ran off after somthing. Last time she did it in the park a few weeks ago. No idea what she was chasing but she got down the embankment at the edge of the park and half way accross the road ( thank god there were no cars at the time!) with me trying to keep calm and shout her back with an extied voice. She suddleny just stopped on the road, turned back on her self and started charging back towards me, making a loop round me and i managed to grabb her as she came round.
I can't let her off lead anywhere there's other people or dogs. I have to take her up the mountain away from the town to let her go, but I walk her on the lead round the town in the center and to the park regularly. I try to get her used to other dogs but I think because ever since she had all her jags and i could start taking her out we are greeted by barking street dogs on virtulally every corner defending their 'patch' and barking after us, following us, and even attacking her on a few occations! So I think she feels like she needs to bark to defend herself, like a kind of 'I'll bite you before you can bite me' kind of thing.
The best way i deal with it is to walk quickly with her through the streets so she doesnt get a chance to take in everything and spot evey dog arround. Generally, if the other dog isnt bothering with her she'll just huff a bit when she sees it and i'll be walking quickly past the other dog and she'll just come past it without much fuss. But if the other dog is barking and chasing after us thats a big problem. I try to avoid dogs I know will be at certain places that bark at her, but its impossible to go a walk without running into any street dogs.

I'v not heard of a Lupi, but I'm fine with the Halti.

The veg patch is fenced in with flimsy chicken wire and wooden sticks as fence posts. She just jumped on it and flattened it to get in! She's not bothered trying to get in before, this was just to get after the cat!