Dixie Caged and Other Things

Dixie has managed to get out of her cage no matter what we've done to it....added boards across and down so she couldn't climb and she still managed to scale the fencing and jump down. After she had her puppies, she pretty much stayed on the porch, running around the house to tease the other dogs, but pretty much staying here, until the last 3 weeks. Every little noise she heard, she would take off at a dead run and run down the road, her puppies following her, barking the whole way, so we'd have to get out of bed, yell for them to come back. During the day she'd go into the driveway, when she couldn't find her ball, and pick up big rocks and bring them back to the porch and throw at us, so we'd throw them back. We ended up putting a bark collar on Dixie which curbed her desire for running down the road barking, which ultimately stopped the puppies. Last week I came up with an idea to keep Dixie inside her cage...I know, another one. I put 2 pieces of the caging on top of each other, tied them together every 2 or 3 inches and then open it up and put it over the cage. After some struggling, Amber and I had the top over it and I tied that down. We threw Dixie's ball into the cage and she can't get out...yes, she's tried. The puppies stay on the porch or run around the yard chasing the kittens or playing with Lady. Now I can finally get all the rocks off the porch.