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[windhund]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Do they require a fenced yard? I have not needed one with the Boston Terriers... they don't move very fast and after obedience are pretty good on recall. Not perfect, but good enough so 10 seconds out of sight is not dangerous.

A fenced yard will make your life with a greyhound much easier, mainly because they cannot be unleashed in open areas. Ex-racers have been bred and extensively trained to chase. Ever see one of those horrible accidents on a horse track where a horse breaks its leg and keeps running anyway? That's the instinct you are up against with a greyhound - it's somewhere been extremely difficult and flat-out impossible to train a greyhound to come reliably to a voice recall once they've sighted something they want to go after. And they are very fast, so if they see something they want to chase (rabbit, squirrel, neighbor's cat) they are gone in an eye blink. And they don't care about roads or cars, so to prevent an untimely death leashing is essential.

Invisible fences are also a no-no with greyhounds. If they see something they want to chase badly enough, the shock won't matter. It will matter later on, though, if they decide to come home afterwards - the shock will deter them from coming back into the yard. Invisible fences also don't keep other animals out of your yard, which can also be dangerous.

Personally, while I do know a few people who have used invisible fences successfully (all lab owners, BTW), I wouldn't have one myself for any breed of dog. Besides the issue of not keeping other animals out, I was a pet sitter for 5 years and experienced too many problems with them - power outages, batteries running down or malfunctioning, dogs who could get the collars off, etc. Just a few months ago we were charged by a neighbor's dog who came at us teeth first - the battery in her collar had run down and she was out running amok.

While a determined dog could certainly circumvent a regular fence by digging or jumping, I have never experienced that issue with any of my clients or my own dogs.