Fencing a yard for a dog in Columbus

Fence companies in Columbus quote a lot of dog fences, particularly on the south side of the city where the rental market around Fort Benning turns over on assignment cycles and a fenced yard is frequently the thing that makes a house workable. The good news is that a dog fence does not have to be expensive. The bad news is that the cheapest version fails in a specific and predictable way, and knowing which failure applies to your dog is most of the job.

Work out which kind of escape artist you have

Dogs get out three ways: over, under, and through. They are different problems with different solutions, and money spent on the wrong one is wasted.

• Over. Athletic dogs clear a four foot fence without much effort. A determined jumper needs height, and height in a fence with footholds is not the same as height in one without.
• Under. Diggers go under any fence that stops at the ground, which is most of them. Chain link is particularly vulnerable because the fabric simply ends.
• Through. Small breeds and puppies fit through gaps that look far too small, including the space under a stepped panel on a slope and the picket spacing on a standard picket fence.

Height

Four feet contains most dogs. Five to six feet contains athletic dogs and dogs with a reason to leave. Columbus is unusually accommodating here: the city ordinance permits fences up to eight feet in any yard, so height is not something the city will stop you doing, though neighborhood covenants may.

One counterintuitive point: a solid privacy fence can make a jumper worse in the short term, because a dog that cannot see what it is reacting to sometimes escalates. It also removes the footholds a picket or chain link fence provides, so on balance solid usually wins. Where it does not work, adding height is more effective than adding solidity.

The bottom, which is where most fences fail

A fence with an open bottom is a fence with a door for a digger. The standard answers, cheapest first:

• Bottom tension wire. On chain link, a wire threaded through the last row of mesh and tied to the posts. Cheap and effective against casual digging.
• Buried apron. Fabric or wire mesh turned outward at ground level and covered with soil, so a dog digging at the fence line hits mesh instead of dirt. More work, much more effective.
• Rot board. On wood, a wide treated board along the bottom, scribed to follow the ground. It closes gaps and takes the ground contact instead of the pickets.
• Concrete mow strip. A poured strip under the fence line. The permanent answer, common on commercial work, and worth it for a serious digger.

On a stepped fence across sloping ground, the triangular gaps under the panels need closing whichever method is used. That is the single most common oversight on dog fences in the rolling ground north of Columbus.

Gates

Gates are how dogs leave. A latch that needs a deliberate action to close is a latch that eventually does not get closed, and a gate that has sagged out of alignment will not latch even when someone tries. Self-closing hinges with a self-latching catch are worth the small extra cost on any gate a dog is behind, and they are the same hardware that pool barriers use.

Gate frames sag because the diagonal brace is missing or running the wrong way. It has to run from the bottom hinge corner up to the top latch corner so it works in tension. A gate that latched in March and does not latch in September is telling you about its brace, not its latch.

Material, given the dog

• Chain link is the cheapest containment and it holds up well. Add a bottom wire or apron. Nine gauge fabric rather than the lighter residential gauges if the dog leans or pushes.
• Wood privacy contains and screens at the same time, which helps with reactive dogs. Add a rot board.
• Aluminum picket looks best and works for dogs too large to fit between pickets. Puppy-picket panels with tighter spacing at the bottom exist for small breeds.
• Vinyl privacy works and needs no maintenance, at the highest up-front cost.

The cheapest arrangement that works

Fence the back yard rather than the whole property, running the side lines only as far as the house corners. Use four foot chain link with a bottom tension wire, or five foot if the dog is athletic. Put in one walk gate with a self-closing hinge and one wider gate if a mower needs through. On a typical Columbus lot that is well under half the cost of a full-perimeter privacy fence and it does the containment job completely.

Where privacy is also wanted, running solid panel on the one line that faces a neighbor and chain link on the rest is a legitimate hybrid that fence companies build regularly, and it costs far less than solid panel everywhere.

Call (706) 786-4625 or use the quote form and mention the dog: the breed and whether it digs, jumps or neither changes the specification. The chain link page covers the usual material and the slope guide covers the gaps.