Diana /Augie you both garden in your respective deer centrals; Besides your dogs and shooting them and eating them anything special that you do?
I have a fence around my garden, and the surrounding countryside is a veritable smorgasbord of num-nums for deer.
The garden is in my yard, 100’-ish from the house. I don’t think the proximity has any effect on the deer. They don’t mind a bit coming in the yard to steal fruit off of my orchard trees or get a drink out of the pond or munch Mrs. Augie’s hostas.
I think it’s more a matter of how hard they want to work for a meal. Why jump a fence when you don’t have to?