DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Electric Fence for Dogs

So I have a new rescue dog. She is an escape artist and scales my 6ft wooden privacy fence to get out.

I was thinking of running hot wire along the top of the fence to keep her in.


Will this work? She will be on the fence when she touches the wire so Im not sure that she would be grounded to get zapped?

Is there any way I can get this to work?

Im really not going to do the wireless solution or the buried wire solution.

Thanks for any insights.

Not sure about this, but it seems to me that a person could get zapped by the hot wire if the fence is 6 feet. Are there any concerns of a neighbor coming into contact w/the top of your fence while doing yard work on the other side?

Thats not really going to help me. I know how to ground the fence. I need to know how to ground the dog on a wooden fence. If thats even a thing

The wire will be on my side of the fence.

we had an invisible fence when I was a kid that worked well 90% of the time.. not sure about a true electric fence...

I have an escape artist currently.... we have a wooden fence and a jack Russel and Lab... The jack loves to dig out and run around the neighborhood for 30-60 minutes before returning.... I finally gave up and just put a steak with a leash in the back for the jack...

Any time he's out he goes on the leash... the lab gets to run free... the lab digs, but not enough to get out...

I know you have seemed to rule out an underground wire type electric perimeter. But there may be a couple of things you wish to consider.

Zoning. Many localities do not allow for above ground electric fences. That's something you may wish to consider before going any further.

And you might consider the possibility that once you make sure your dog can't make it over the fence, the dog will decide to go under the fence.

I decided to to try the underground wire fence. I'm running out of options.

dogs don't know it's not bacon. Well,
I've seen and heard a couple of things over the years, I've seen a dog that would jump fences running around inside the fenced area tied to a leash and the other end of the leash had a brick or cinder block on it.

I've seen a different leashed up dog with the other end of the leash tied to a free loop , think key ring, that was around a clothes line so the dog could go all the way out, and all the way back, but only within a few feet of either side of the clothes line. <I'm a fan of that one.

also heard of this bad one.
A different dog that jumped the enclosure and the leash it was on wasn't long enough and the dog was hanged and died.
and more than one that got outside the fence and after they got to the bigger roads got hit by a car and died.

I've seen dogs make uneasy foot paths that wouldn't go 3 feet from the building when they didn't know where the invisible fence shock collar shock was coming from.

We had it growing up and it worked really well 95% of the time.. if our lab saw a squirrel he really wanted he didn't care about getting shocked... but overall it worked well for our dogs...

if it'll work for coyote, it'll work for a pet, and it works for coyote on just a 4' fence.

A hot wire about 12" down from the top and maybe one across the top (perhaps angle it inward to your side a bit so as not to annoy the neighbors) and that should get 'er done.

yeah, the problem with the invisible fences is that if something triggers them, or scares them, enough to go through, they ain't stopping, and then they're on the wrong side and they ain't coming back in.

Not a month after I moved into my new house a couple of years back, one of the neighbors lost their dog through their invisible fence because a hot air balloon went overhead and spooked the dog. She ran and kept going; she was gone for four days. Fortunately, she was found at a neighbors place about a half mile down the road, but she very easily could have been road kill.

Well, this is an invisible fence in addition to a 6 ft fence. She will be zapped for a long time (several seconds) in the process of getting over the wood fence. If that doesn't work, then I will have to return the dog. She would need an 8 ft fence which I don't have.

I had a hybrid wolf, most elusive escape artist I have ever seen. as a pup she figured how to unlock her crate and get out.

I ended up burying an invisible fence about 1' inside the fence line. It worked great, although she was fast and stubborn, and if she really wanted out, she would full charge the fence and leap over, and you could see her stumble from the shock, shake it off and go about her business. It was only a 4' chain link.

She never went far, just wandered around the house mostly, but loved to sit in the middle of the front yard after getting out and watching people go by, then trot over to the vehicle when I'd get home from work like nothing was wrong.

But the invisible fence definitely cut down her escapes by 90% or better.

I've decided to return the dog. It makes me sad, but I can't watch a dog 24x7. I need a more chill dog.