It's Always Something...

Wednesday morning, Jasper and Kizzi were playing out in the back yard. I went out to call them in and they were gone. So I jumped in the car and headed down the road, going slowly so I could check backyards of other houses. I had gone almost half a mile before I saw them. When I got back home with the dogs, Mike suggested that we dip into our emergency fund and fence the yard. So that’s what we did. It took us 5 days to get it up and “mostly” done, but the hardest part is done. We still have some perimeter fencing to put up, but that actually goes pretty quickly!

More than once, my former neighbor has said “I don’t know why you bother. If it were my dog and it didn’t want to stay home, good riddance.” That one statement speaks volumes about her and her character.

I fenced my yard for several reasons. First, because it will contain MY dogs. I love them all and the emotional attachment I feel wants me to protect them – from cars on the street, to stray dogs, etc. It will also keep them from running out to the road to check on people walking their dogs. They can just stay at the fence and bark annoyingly (though I’m almost sad my former neighbor isn’t here to annoy…)

A fence will keep other dogs OUT! I have one very large, fat, getting lazier by the week, cat. I like him. He occasionally does his job, which is to catch mice. The fence won’t contain him, but at least he will have a safe place to wander.

By keeping neighborhood dogs out, I don’t have to worry about my shrubs, truck, car, hay, or hot tub getting peed on. I only have one male dog, and he pees like a girl...unless another male has been visiting. My former neighbor’s dog had a bad habit of peeing on my hay in the barn, peeing on my hot tub, spraying ANYTHING vertical! I was ALWAYS hosing something off. *sigh*

The fence will contain the horses. Bullwinkle is back home from training and has always been a precocious little brat who enjoys taking the fence tapes down. If he ever get the perimeter fence down, at least now the horses will be contained to the back yard.

The fence will prevent unwanted access from the street. More than once, someone turned into our driveway thinking it was a gravel road, and drove around the house. They didn’t hurt anything, but I have stupid dogs and they COULD have been run over. Besides, it annoys me!

We really liked the “openness” of the place, but the time has come to “lock it down”. Now if we can just keep the wheel on the gate, it’ll all be good!