Only 5 more days until I get my yard back

The old couple who live behind me watch their daughter's dogs for 3 weeks every summer. The first few years I lived there it was only this big, sweet, fat golden mix who would occasionally whine at the fence when I was outside to ask for some attention. But in the last 2 years they added a sheltie into their family.

This Sheltie is the most aggressive fence fighter I have ever seen in my live. I mean, when the people next door to me kept a pitbull bitch and her puppies for 8 weeks in their back yard it wasn't even this bad (but that was still pretty bad... the bitch was very protective of her puppies).

But this dog... oh my. The first 2 weeks she was here I was determined to ignore her barking and lunging at the fence. I'm so amazed at how good my dogs are when he does it. They will rush to the fence at the first outburst, but I just have to call them back and they ignore the beast from then on even though he continues to bark, rush and bite at the fence. It's a wooden privacy fence so aside from a few little knots and holes you really can't see through to the other side.

But I let the dogs out to the backyard on Friday after work before leaving for the trial and I noticed that a board of the fence was crooked. The Sheltie broke the board totally off of the fence! I'm sure he could get through the space left too. I stood up on the fence and looked to the other side... all along the fence the Sheltie had torn huge chunks of wood out fence boards and shredded the fence posts. I was very shocked! His mouth must be full of slivers. At least I can hope.

I stood there looking over the fence long enough that the old man came out of the house with his walker to find out what I was doing. He was stone deaf and wouldn't move more than a pace away from his door so we spent about 30 minutes in a conversation with me SCREAMING at the top of my lungs (not because I was pissed - which I was, but because he couldn't hear a word I was saying) and him saying, "WHAT? HUH? WHAT??"

But essentially during that long, inefficient conversation I found out that the dogs are going back next Saturday and I told him he needs to keep his stupid sheltie (I didn't say that exactly, but I probably could have since he couldn't hear me anyway) inside or supervised in the evenings because my dogs will be outside with me. I have no clue if he really understood what I was saying, but nodded and agreed.

So I'll try to fix my fence tonight and see if he keeps the stupid dog inside when I'm home. But if that sheltie gets into my yard it won't be pretty. My dogs are too nice to do anything to it, but I'm sure not.