laura_seabrook | Hallie's Handicap (Reply)

Hallie, being the American Staffordshire pup that she is, likes to "escape" and run up the street and explore. Neither Kevin or I am keen on that happening.

A while ago, Kevin came up with a solution, which he called a "handicap". He put a leash on her and tied a large object (big enough so that it would stick in the pet door, or a gap in the fence) on the other end. The first object used was the side of an old D-I-Y storage box - this was a square wire grind about 10cm wide. This was fine to start with but the wire was thin and broke into segments that cut and snagged on things.

After a while I I found some replacements. They were circular metal wire pot plant stands. Both had wheels on but I removed these from the larger thicker base, while leaving them on the smaller, thinner one. The small one (with wheels) would get attached while she was inside, and the larger (with no wheels) while she was outside. It worked for a while.

But Hallie lost the small one when she ran under the house and it snagged on something. The large one stood up well, but Hallie has grown and when she runs around she just pulls it about like a toy, even though the object is heavy and solid. This is how she ripped the grill of the fly-wire door. This is how she caused damage to various objects in the house (including my fan last night). This is how she injured my right foot too the other day, when it swiped the back of it.

Got sick of that, so for a few days I replaced the stand with a plastic milk crate. It worked, wasn't so destructive, but stuck in everything. Today, after jenny's I bought a steering wheel cover at Big-W and Kevin put this over the stand. It seems to have reduced its destructiveness and Hallie even held it in her mouth for a while. It might work better with an inner padding of cut hose as well. We'll see.

Any suggestions how else we can stop the bitch escaping (we hope she'll grow out of it)?