Why Do Labradors Jump Fences?

Most Labradors jump fences when their owners are absent. This leads us to ask just why the pet is shut out of the house when the owners go away. Destructive behavior in the house is often the underlying complaint.

A solution to the destructiveness is more pertinent than an effort to correct fence jumping. If your Labrador is jumping out at a location where the fence or gate is only 3 feet high, a simple physical adjustment may entail raising the level of the barrier. Fence jumping usually involves social factors. Your dog is often seeking the company of other dogs or people.

The social aspect is most evident in Labradors that are shut out of their homes and jump even when the family is present. These dogs generally wind up scratching at the front door to get back into the family group. Installation of a dog door may clear this up quickly. The cause of goal-oriented fence jumping usually relates to the animal’s ultimate activity when he is free of the yard. For instance, a dog may jump the fence only on Monday mornings. Many dogs were allowed to roam free in the neighborhood, and tended to meet on Monday morning, which happened to be garbage collection time. The normally content pet needed only the extra stimulus of the weekly dog pack to sufficiently motivate him to jump a 6-foot block wall.

The solution to this problem is to keep the dog in the house on Monday mornings for a few weeks to break the pattern. The sexually motivated jumper is more difficult to correct, especially if his behavior has been rewarded. The simplest way to correct this is to keep the male or female dog indoors until the season is over. Labradors that are permitted to roam or are regularly walked in the neighborhood and allowed to urinate freely may jump fences for the purpose of re-marking their territory and/or fighting with other neighborhood dogs. When these elements are present, the walks must be stopped as part of the correction. Urine marking can develop into a habitual pattern.

Urban pet owners believe this activity is necessary for the happiness of their dogs, especially male animals. It may appear to be rewarding, but it is actually an idiosyncrasy of city dogs rarely noted in their rural cousins. The primary reason for this behavior is that owners allow it to occur. If all owners prevented their pets from urinating around the neighborhood, a major cause of fence jumping would be eliminated. Frustration with confinement is also responsible for a good deal of jumping.

A Labrador that is isolated and does not receive enough social interaction will often try to escape. Freedom then becomes a goal in itself, no matter the consequences in terms of later punishment or further confinement.