Our new neighbor has a golden lab pup, very cute and very friendly. The pup wanders over to our property on a regular basis to hang with my dog and just poke around. Being a water dog, she is also regularly taking a dip in my small fish pond, knocking all the plants over and the edging rocks into the pond and generally making a mess. I scold her when I catch her at it, but usually just find her dripping wet after a swim. I don't want to complain to the neighbor and also don't want to ask them to keep her at home - I'm in a rural area and my dog goes over to their yard as often as the pup comes over here. We're both on 10+ acres and it would be prohibitive to try to dog fence our adjoining line (660 feet, mostly 5 strand barb wire). My plan is to teach Marla (the pup) to keep out of the pond. I realize she is a pup and it will take some time. Over the weekend we laid a section of chicken wire over the pond as a deterrent, but she came around the corner dripping wet and the wire is now in the shape of the bottom of the pond. Next plan will be to build a wooden frame for the wire that sits on top of the pond (ugly but temporary). All the loose animals (dogs, cats) use the pond for their drinking water and I have an access designed to allow for that. Here are before and after pictures - the before is mid-summer of last year, and the after is a blurry image from this morning - heron askew, pots on their sides, rocks knocked over, etc. On the positive side, I've been meaning to redo the pond anyway and once I solve the Marla problem, I'd like to drain it, clean it, and redo the edges. So, I'm not overly bothered by it being a bit of disaster this season. Any ideas to try to keep Marla on dry land?

That's not good! Can you teacher her to go to you big pond? Maybe with the fence you will catch her then show her down to the other pond. Frankie is getting a good work out with the lab pup. I with you don't want to make it bad for the dog. Frankie might show her the light as well.

Electric fence has worked well for me(make sure it is a charger that has alternating charge/no charge for animal protection. Even low voltage chargers with constant charge can kill kittens and other small animals because they bite the wire and can't let go.) We placed the charger in a small ice cooler originally. Now it has a nice little brick housing. We just run an extension cord to the little housing since there is no plug-in close.

You can have the wire go out over the water at one end so that the animals can drink. That is what I did. I used short pieces of rebar for posts with the plastic insulators spray painted brown for the wire hangers. You only need one wire, but I use two. The first on mine is about 6"- 8" off the ground and the 2nd is about 6" above that. The persistent raccoon only had to hit it twice, but that was the end of him destroying my pond. He did continue to taunt the dogs though. Most of my dogs have only sniffed it once. Some are a little slower but understand after a 2nd zap.

Don't know if this is what you were thinking, but it has helped with my pond critter problems. Paver housing before the end pieces and fencer were installed.
Pond with pear blossoms.

I did the elect. fence also, I just set mine up on a temporary basis. Once Abby (1/2 lab) figured out that was not the place to take a dip. Yep, zapped only twice and I left it up a week or so to remind her. Now she stays out of our pond. It is so aggravating to have to up-right your plants & replace rocks. The elect. fence will not hurt her, just teach her. Good Luck!

Good ideas, and I have a charger in the barn somewhere from our large animal days. I'll see if my husband can rig something up.

That is a good idea!! Otherwise you will be a long time in the process I'm guessing!! (I have to say I love the "after" photo! It looks like she just dove right in, fence and all!)
Thanks for posting this BH!