[matese]

I have gates on both my front and back decks for just this reason. My last girl was 17 y/o and blind reason I had gates, didn't want her to fall down the 2 / 3 steps. Now I have crazy boy Cody, when someone comes to door he has to be the first one out, I have a storm door so I can see if the person closed the gate, ppl like FedX, UPS, friends know to close the gate. I have no idea what Cody would do if he got off the front deck. Last year a jerk new neighbor left the gate open, I never saw it and Cody ran off across the road, thank god it's the community road, although we have a 10 MPH they do 25 & 30. I only had Cody 3 weeks when this happened, I ran across the road, thank god he knew the command word STAY, that I discovered at that moment. From that day on I always make sure that front deck gate is closed before I open the storm door. I have never had Cody off leash only in the back yard, I don't know if he will come on a return call if he ever gets loose. Last summer was his first time as a free spirit in a yard, his focus was on investigating and hunting, I couldn't get him to focus on me so I just let him enjoy his new freedom. I have him 16 months now, yard is no longer something new, I will give Spring time to get reacquainted with the yard since he couldn't use it all winter, even now yard still has 2 feet of packed snow, still not able to let him use it, summer I will work on re-call with him. His safety is top priority.