Yesterday while my OH was out walking a couple of men approached her asking lots of questions about the dog. She was very uncomfortable as they seemed to follow her around even when she changed direction then changed again and went back to the car. She is now paranoid that someone will steal him (a dog was stolen near us very recently, although it was from outside a shop).

We are very careful with security and the house is locked and alarmed to the hilt. What I am worried about is safety in the garden. Obviously there will be times when he is outside and I'm doing work in the house or the shed and he is unsupervised for a few minutes - Does anyone have any tips to make the garden safer and make it more obvious that someone is snooping around?

Thanks

There is some advise on securing your garden here.

Did you report the men to the police?  I certainly would have - I have done in fact when some years ago a similar situation arose on one of my OoH excursions,  I was definitely followed and when reported to the police discovered someone else had been similarly stalked a week earlier but thankfully neither of us incurred injury or had our dogs targetted :)

As for the garden, much will depend on the height of your boundaries.  I have mainly walls, 6' high, and a short 'L' shaped run of 5' high fencing but three sides of the garden are either inaccessible because of taller shrubs or the rear wall of our house.   It's not impossible to get over a 6' wall or fence but even in a large garden unlikely to be able to do so undetected if you're busy in the general area of the house nearest the garden - certainly in the unlikely even of someone trying to escape with a dog under their arm I'd think it would be very difficult and that without the dog objecting :)

If you don't feel the garden to be sufficiently secure then raise the height of your boundaries and plant some prickly shrubs around them too with perhaps coarse gravel/shingle so that anyone entering uninvited will not be able to do so quietly :)

HTH, Teri

One year my children gave their Lindt Easter Bunny collars to the dog.  The small gold bells were quite nice and we found it very helpful to know where he was, particularly when he was mooching around the garden. 

When these wore out we replaced then with a larger, more robust one from a craft shop.   I took his last bell off when the puppy was little for fear it would be chewed and I still miss the 'sound' of him.  When he was out of sight he wasn't out of earshot which is helpful for security.

Our house sits in the middle of a fenced garden but we've also installed a 2nd fence to keep the dogs in the back garden.  I don't like them being able to get to the front fence at weekends when we have walkers, also the postman was never very good at shutting the front gate properly.  Luckily one of mine is a barker so no one would get to the house without me being notified.