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?
