Fence Pacing - Page 1

 I have a white German Shepherd that is very high energy. She will chase a ball or frisbee for hours, but lately she has started fence pacing. I have 3 neighbor dogs so she usually runs back and forth with them, but now she runs back and forth even if they arent outside. I have no grass left and it is steadily gettig  worse and now I just brought home a little black German Shepherd puppy because I wanted her to have a playmate, but she pays no attention to the puppy because she is constantly running. I'm  going to take her to the vet this week,but I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how I could get her to stop

 Why take her to the vet for a behavior problem? If a child acts out in school, do you take him to the doctor? Of course not.  Have you tried anything to stop your dog?

I tend to pace when I'm anxious or bored. Guess that's why they gave me a padded room.

It is a behavior problem and needs training to "fix" it, not a new puppy, who will quickly learn your older dog's behaviors.

I've got a fence runner and I also do agility with multiple dogs so what I did was put a few of my jumps up against the fence but perpendicular when we weren't doing agility, so he didn't have a space to run the fence anymore.  I was also thinking of getting some large potted shrubs to put along the fence but we are moving in a month to a house with a wood privacy fence.

There is a German word for this behaviour, it is a known behaviour in some lines. It begins with the letter "L" is all I remember... I think!!!. It is related to an OCD.

You can't get rid of this tendancy but you can manage it. It was explained to me on this site, so maybe using the search function will help you find this information.

I agree beetree, I think some dogs just do this and ther's no sure way of snapping them out of it short of always interrupting or preventing it.  I think my dog has this tendency.  Now, he does spend a lot of time playing with me and with the other dogs, but if there is a prey animal on the other side of the fence, he likes to run it (with a Kong in his mouth).  My herding instructor says he moves well though and he can do a 180 pivot on a dime.  He patrols the fence the same way he moves when herding.  The fence pacing is not obsessive so I don't really worry about it other than putting my jumps along the fence to avoid all the trample paths.  To me it's no worse than a lot of kennel dogs I see that just pace and run and spin in their kennels all day.  If he keeps at it, I just find something else for him to do or call him inside.

Ive had dogs fence run and fight and Ive never been able to break it once it starts. I agree with other posters that the puppy will soon pick up this habit if allowed to. For dogs that run the fence, I wont let them out on their own unless I'm there and in control. Otherwise within a few minutes the dogs are running with the dogs on the other side whose owners could care less about.

If your not with the dog, then I would either have the dog inside or penned. The only other thing that did work for awhile was covering the fence with tarps. It was ugly though so when the tarps deteriorated, I didn't replace them.

Oh and shrubs don't work. Tried that. Maybe if you got giant ones. Dogs just jump right over them or into them breaking the plant.

Barb