Rural Fecing

[SkySoaringMagpie]

Our house yard is 6 foot chain mesh - expensive but we haven't had an escape yet. Leaping is more of a problem than digging for us and I selected it after seeing it at another Saluki owner's property. The hot wire is on the outside to stop stock rubbing the fence and ruining it. I'd listen to whatever other rural Stafford people do.

Our fencing is in the background of this pic

[di_dee1]

I too am on a farm and have 3 ACDx. Our house and yard can not be fenced so we made a huge pen for them incorporating shady trees and used the unused garden shed as their shelter.

We do not keep the fence taught as with my dogs it makes them feel insecure to climb.

I think we got our wire from bunnings, not sure or it could have been a fencing place and used star posts. They do not dig out, do try to at times or the dog on time out with me tries to dig in lol.

Our wire is angled inside on the dirt.

[SpotTheDog]

My only reservation about a hot wire and larger dogs is whether they associate the shock with you.

As per the poster who said her two dogs had a barney after getting a shock, I was walking around a relative's property and their 50kg rottie was along with us. They have horses and have two hot wires, one high and one low, in their paddock fences. The rottie got a zap from the lower hotwire after squeezing under it - the cousin had called him, the dog started towards him, and got the smack from the wire and then there was a really, really dodgy moment where it looked like the dog thought the cousin had done it to him - and was NOT impressed. My cousin was calling and reassuring the dog but he was still coming on stiff and with very unhappy body language. I was off to one side and whistled to him - the distraction broke the moment, but honestly for a minute it really looked like the dog was going to have him.

[TangerineDream]

I've used chicken mesh on the boundary fencing to stop Tango going through after the roos or next door's cat, and his day run is 6' deer fencing (not taught) with chicken wire on the inside as well...no escapes in 2 years once I'd sorted out a couple of gate and digging issues...

Edited October 9, 2010 by TangerineDream

[OSoSwift]

I have 5 & 7 strand plain wire stock fences. The top wire is hot and the second from the bottom. All my dogs have hit it once and will not go near it ( both Whippets lost traction when cornering at speed and crashed thorugh it, so stay away when zooming now). Mine don't try to dig or jump them so no issues there. They are not left out without supervision at any time and are either inside or in their dog run which is chain mesh attatched to steel frame with concrete floors, brick houses and zincalume roofing.

My mums crafty BC X figured out quite quickly how to get through the fence and not get zapped. She took to jumping through if she had treasures that she thought my dogs might want. After she left I found a small stash of toys, treats and the odd milk carton!

My fences are set for stock as all the paddocks come right around the house so they are high and they bloody hurt if you get booted. None of my dogs are allowed into the paddocks unless by invitation - which is extremely rare.

[Raelene]

The secret to farm fencing is to make sure your fence is more secure than you need.

It is usually expensive to do a large area and you need to know that when you are finished they are going to stay there. Having had many rescue staffords over the years, you MUST know that they cannot get out. Some are great with other animals, some aren't and will chase stock given opportunity. If they do learn to chase (by being given the opportunity) they can get into a LOT of trouble and it is far better to spend the money and do it properly the first time. It would be heartbreaking to either have your dog shot or to have to be rid of it immediately if it maimed another persons animals or to be pursued legally by the livestocks owners.

There are a lot of laws re electric fencing, you need to look into it in your state to ensure that you comply.

Normal electric fencing pulses too slowly for dogs (so they can learn to get through it), however if they hit it, it can give them one big wallop. Pingg-String (you can search it on the net) makes all different types of electric suitable to animals from rodents through dogs to elephants. They do have the details of compliance in each state (ie. in NSW it has to be behind a 5ft fence). Another nice thing is that their versions aren't necessarily going to zap a person. Having been zapped numerous times by the stock fencing, I can tell you that is a nice aspect of Pingg-String. In many states, the versions that use collars are illegal. In addition, the comments about a dog redirecting is correct - to both other animals and humans. I do know of a dog that went for children as it had been looking at them when it hit the fence - it was a very nasty situation. It was jumping over a fence into the neighbours and the neighbours kids were outside. Dog jumped and got zapped whilst kids were in its line of sight. Fortunately there were adults around to deal with the situation but it was VERY SCARY. Another issue is that if a dog is wearing a collar and it gets out, at the time of escape the dog is usually stimulated or moving quickly and can be zapped as it continues away from its yard. If this happens then the dog is not likely to have the willingness to risk another zap to get home again. Lastly with the collar.... they don't work for breeds/individual dogs - such as labradors, etc. Some just go straight through it.

I have a mix of both staffords (our own dogs), those that will chase and those that won't. None of them are hard on the fences and are out in the yard with access to the house via a dog door when we are out (I find being able to come inside has been extremely good at helping the dogs be happy in the yard). The house fence is at its lowest point 4ft solid chicken wire with a floppy bit at the top and a foot that goes down and out on the ground (still able to mow over) to prevent digging. This fence was already there (we just added to the top and bottom). The new parts of the fence are either dog mesh or chain mesh 5-6ft. If I was to be redoing our whole yard, I wouldn't go under 5ft.

Our rescue dog runs are 5ft chainmesh with an addition of another 3ft of floppy dog mesh at the top (for climbers) and we have a HUGE just over 6ft chainmesh "dog backyard" so that we know the dogs will still be there when we come home.

My husband and I built both the dog runs and the chainmesh backyard. It isn't that hard, and if you can supply labour, it brings the cost down immensely.

I can't stress that it really is worth the expense.

R

PS. Definitely hot wire on the outside for the stock though - they are really hard on the fences. Also, I have heard that a hot wire on the outside about an inch off the ground is very effective for keeping snakes away (you'd probably have to Roundup the bottom of the fence line to get rid of the grass through).

Edited October 10, 2010 by Raelene