Our neighbor bought a 4 month old Great Dane who came with a long and impressive sounding kennel name which was quickly changed to Dufus. Dufus is a very sweet happy idiot who doesn’t realize how big he is. When Dufus was smaller, the 5 foot fence around the yard was enough to contain him. When he got bigger, he started jumping the fence to go visit the neighborhood.
As you might guess, this distressed his person who started trying different methods of keeping Dufus safe in his yard. Dufus never threatened anyone, he just wanted to say hello and get his ears rubbed, but he also liked to lean on people. He was a big dog, when he leaned on me, he always knocked me off balance. If he wagged his tail against my legs, I would end up with bruising.
So, there was not only there the danger of Dufus being hit by a car, Dufus had the potential to accidently hurt someone. By the time Dufus was 10 months old, neighbor was starting to consider a shock collar. Suddenly, he had what I consider a stroke of genius. He went to the shelter and adopted a 3 year old border collie, Buddy.
Buddy was very smart, but very high energy and needed a job. Buddy now has a full time job and seems to love it. His job is keeping Dufus in the yard. He’s so good at it that Dufus hasn’t gotten out of the yard in 4 months.
Buddy now has a good job, a good forever home and a good friend who is easily distracted and loves to play chase and be chased. Dufus is safe and happy. A very happy ending to what could have been 2 sad endings.
Very nice. My little pit bull Simone knew a pair of herding dogs at the dog park who would trade off running with her. One would run her silly while the other took a breather, then the runner would shave Simone off against his partner and take a break while that one took up the chase game. They always wore her out first.
Also, perhaps the neighbor would consider backing Buddy up by raising the fence top? (Sorry, I work in a safety agency.)
Thanks all. My respect levels for Neighbor went way up when I saw him not only find the most humane to contain Dufus while saving a high energy shelter dog. That’s not the solution I would have found, its MUCH better.
Neighbor can’t raise his fence due to city codes. At one point, he nailed lattice to the top, but someone made him take it down. He’s actually ex-neighbor now because he didn’t get condemned and we did. We still own our home and stuff is still there that needs to be taken care of, so of course I go over to visit and get Dofus “mauled”. While Buddy does try to keep Dufus from knocking people over in their yard, when Dufus sees a human all he can think about is gallumping over to make a new best friend.
Even after our home is demo’d, we will still go to visit because our greyhounds just love running with the giant. They aren’t really good herding dogs, so Buddy always leads the pack.
Many years ago my (then) boyfriend brought home the cutest largish puppy. Massive paws. He claimed she was “just” a Doberman.
Turned out she was a dobie/dane mix. She quickly outgrew the apartment, so she went to live with friends of ours who were very much dog people.
Their huskies were not fans of Coco, the galumping horse of love. They tolerated her, but didn’t understand her playfulness.
One day, their daughter brought home a doxie pup.
Coco and Fred quickly became best buddies, keeping each other active and busy.
Watching them play was a hoot - Coco would purposely slow down so Fred could “catch” her, Fred loved zooming in between Coco’s paws, tripping her. You never saw one without the other. If one of the huskies would chase Fred, Coco would stop it pretty fast. Fred would stop Coco from going where she shouldn’t - like jumping fences.
Sadly, like with many very large dogs, Coco passed away at age 8. Poor Fred was SO lost. He tried getting along with the huskies to no avail.
Until the daughter brought home a puppy with incredibly huge paws…
Twenty years later, the family still has huskies AND a doxie AND a moose dog (now it’s a mastiff).
Our cattle dog mix has had to settle for occasional cat herding. She was actually able to do it with a cat who would bolt out the door, until the cat realized she wouldn’t actually bite him. When that happened she started just holding him down until one of us came and got him.
