Should I fence off most of the garden?

[Solo2]

I can't relax for a single moment in the garden as cute, loveable, new puppy is attracted to every single thing in the garden that is dangerous to him or destructive to me/ the garden....the bulbs, the snails, the large deep pond, the expensive pond plants...I am following him round ALL the time although I've now got him used to a harness and long trailing lead to stop the worst dangers.

I'm now needing to decide between the following options: 1) Fence off the natural swimming pond only - but this will have an adverse effect on the water heating by the sun because of shadows cast by a fence. 2) Fence off the patio and a small side area of the lawn/ garden and make it completely safe for the puppy - but this will restrict his freedom and also adversely effect our view of the main garden...unless I can find a creative way of making this work design wise - eg using decorative trellis fencing or wrought iron or something. 3) Keep an eye on him over the next year or two whilst training him vigourously until he stops getting into danger/ destroying the garden -and still allow him free run of everything (get DCs to be vigilant for poo desposit residues!)

What have other people done who have a reasonable sized, landscaped garden and are keen gardeners?

Has anyone successfully fenced off the patio area with something creative that looks good and through which you can still view the garden but which is dog-proof? How high should it be to prevent a full grown golden retriever from leaping over in moment of excitement and will the need for height mean that this ruins the view from the patio?

at the swimming pond.

tbh I wouldn't do anything major/structural (except possibly re the pond, but I'd do that for kids, including visiting toddlers).

my main reason for not doing anything is that I think option 3 is your best - by quite a long way. I've never held much with unsupervised dogs in gardens (possibly something to do with our neighbour who lets his bark out there at 6 am . Dogs like people to be with - they get bored on their own. outside time, for me, is fun time with an adult. (or, at least, a human) or mooching around time while the humans play/garden/eat/whatever but, crucially, are around. teach him useful commands (leave/no being one of them). he won't be a pup forever

Hmm... we have a reasonable sized garden but it is not properly landscaped and we are not keen gardners so I am not sure I am qualified to answer your question!

We are currently employing option 3. Our 9 month old pup has always been on a lead outside in the garden since day 1. [ On day 1 he wriggled under a Lleylandii hedge then squeezed under a fence panel into our neighbour's garden. ] He is now far too big to squeeze out of the garden, but he had a bad habit of picking up and chewing stones and twigs - this can be controlled better when he is on the lead.

Now that the better weather is coming I am hoping that once I get rid of all the twigs our oak trees have shed over the winter, we will be able to play with him off-lead in the garden without him getting into too much mischief.

I saw your question on the other thread about pooing in one place, We have never insisted on him using one area - we were just really pleased when he used the garden; BUT... this mean that he will go on a hunt for the perfect place to do his business which usually means squeezing under some shrub. It is not fun traipsing round the garden with a torch in the winter then half-embedding yourself in a bush trying to pick it up. If you can confine him to one handy area it would make it much easier!

We don't have a big garden, but do want to keep the dog (and poo) from their play area, so have fenced a small area off for that so she has some outdoor space where we can clean up after her in our own time rather than worrying about it every time she is out. She is allowed in the rest of the garden when we are out there and supervised so still gets access to more of the space. We used a slatted fencing panel so if you consider that it may not be too shady for the swimming pond.

I always fence off an area for the puppies. We do have a large garden and I don't want to be forever following puppies around and wondering what they are up to and also they do not need to be charging around a large space when they are little. It is also so much easier to keep a small area safe and puppy proof. The garden can be the most dangerous place for puppies as they will eat anything, slugs, stones, plants etc.

I have temporary fencing which as the puppy gets bigger is moved to make a larger area but I always have a way of keeping different dogs in different areas from each other or DCs. It helps to keep me sane...ish

I personally would fence off the swimming pool I would not want to be constantly worrying about swimming or drowning or just wet dogs to be honest but I guess it is up to you - How do you keep it safe from your DC's and friend?

Thanks for the feedback. I just can't decide what to do really. To fence off the natural swimming pond, the fence would presumably have to be pretty high and this would then shadow the pond which wouldn't heat (it's heated only by the sun) and reduce our chances to use it. Lots of people have their dogs swimming in their swimming ponds once they've taught them the exit and entrance points - but not sure how to train Rollo to do this when any mistakes would mean a ripped lining, destroyed planting or worst of all a half-drowned puppy!

Minimu - we only had the pond put in last September and most people who come round are similar aged to my twins - 9 to 10 yrs old and good swimmers - so there's not been any safety issues. There's a gravel edge around the pond with planting - so it would take a lot for a child to make it's way beyond that and into deeper water but a puppy would happily splosh in the gravel edge - thus ruining the planting and then probably not realise there was then a drop into deeper water.

Most feedback I'm getting suggests not fencing off the patio....The trailing long lead and harness is working OK for now if I follow Rollo around ALL the time - but it's just SO time consuming!!!