We have a lot of problems with our neighbours. They don't like one of our dogs, she barks whenever they get close to the fence. I'm not sure why, but our neighbour had decided to start intimidating our dogs by standing right up against the fence (it's around four feet tall) and staring them down. We asked him to stop, put up a few no trespassing signs, didn't see him doing it again.
Our australian shepherd recently started peeing in the house. Not normal running off to a certain location and peeing, just she would stand up and there would be a giant wet spot under her. We thought we weren't letting her out often enough, so we started monitoring it more closely, out once an hour. Still the wet spots remained. So we started going out with her to make sure she was peeing. She would go to her usual spot, pee, run back upstairs to be let in. No more wet spots. We stopped going out with her to see if anything had changed. More wet spots.
She'll go out on her own in the morning and do what she has to, but by about afternoon/early evening, that all stops. So we try to make sure she gets out every hour/hour and a half, we wander around with her then she runs back upstairs to be let in immediately. She will not spend time out there after a certain point, even with our other two dogs.
Yesterday I went out with her and the neighbours happened to be out. I called her over to her preferred pee locations and she would not come willingly. It took a few times, but eventually she came up to me, just to immediately run away. She would go to the farthest point away from him and just stare. I tried to call her again, and as soon as he was out of her sight, she would run back to her spot and stare at him. That's not how she acts when anyone else from their family is outside, it's not how she used to act when he was outside either.
She is never outside when we're not around, she's never outside for any long periods of time. We don't even walk our dogs around the area we live in because of complications with our neighbours (they used to have a HUGE german shepherd they couldn't control and left off-leash, she would rush at us with her hackles up and barking aggressively, our dogs reacted to the threat and one managed to yank the leash right out of our hand, they didn't fight, no one was injured, they blamed us for the whole thing). She won't reliably go pee anywhere outside of our backyard, even when we take her to the nearby park each day she'll hold it until we get home. It's not like we can just take her elsewhere when she needs to go.
Could he be doing something to her? What could be causing this behaviour? Is there anyway to give her more confidence in our own backyard? I feel like we're not allowed to use our own property, like we're not allowed to have dogs, because of one man. We moved to the country to give our dogs some freedom, but it feels like they have even less than ever before.
Our australian shepherd recently started peeing in the house. Not normal running off to a certain location and peeing, just she would stand up and there would be a giant wet spot under her. We thought we weren't letting her out often enough, so we started monitoring it more closely, out once an hour. Still the wet spots remained. So we started going out with her to make sure she was peeing. She would go to her usual spot, pee, run back upstairs to be let in. No more wet spots. We stopped going out with her to see if anything had changed. More wet spots.
She'll go out on her own in the morning and do what she has to, but by about afternoon/early evening, that all stops. So we try to make sure she gets out every hour/hour and a half, we wander around with her then she runs back upstairs to be let in immediately. She will not spend time out there after a certain point, even with our other two dogs.
Yesterday I went out with her and the neighbours happened to be out. I called her over to her preferred pee locations and she would not come willingly. It took a few times, but eventually she came up to me, just to immediately run away. She would go to the farthest point away from him and just stare. I tried to call her again, and as soon as he was out of her sight, she would run back to her spot and stare at him. That's not how she acts when anyone else from their family is outside, it's not how she used to act when he was outside either.
She is never outside when we're not around, she's never outside for any long periods of time. We don't even walk our dogs around the area we live in because of complications with our neighbours (they used to have a HUGE german shepherd they couldn't control and left off-leash, she would rush at us with her hackles up and barking aggressively, our dogs reacted to the threat and one managed to yank the leash right out of our hand, they didn't fight, no one was injured, they blamed us for the whole thing). She won't reliably go pee anywhere outside of our backyard, even when we take her to the nearby park each day she'll hold it until we get home. It's not like we can just take her elsewhere when she needs to go.
Could he be doing something to her? What could be causing this behaviour? Is there anyway to give her more confidence in our own backyard? I feel like we're not allowed to use our own property, like we're not allowed to have dogs, because of one man. We moved to the country to give our dogs some freedom, but it feels like they have even less than ever before.
