Bless them! The dodgem car reference made me laugh!
I wonder why they use it so much with horses then.

reasons in this case......night time there were two stallions that did damage when stabled(boxed in) so they were allowed to stay out and have a walk in stable which they could stand under, one ''Vincent'' used to ram the fences to that detered him off them, and there was a piece of marsh land running along side another of the fields, which had boggy ground, dangerous if horses got through, so that was section off using electric wiring.

Aww bless - the farmers fields we walk in there is electric fencing all around, and he leaves them on all the time.

Laf discovered that the other day

Cos the shock isn't as bad for a larger animal than for a dog or a person...

Noah got a good zapping at a campsite we went to recently... he thought it fun to lunge at a fence where a shetland pony was standing behind... i can tell you said pony had the last laugh though. The look on Noah`s face was priceless... he had no idea what had just happened.

Sorry to hear Tango got zapped, we have a lot of electric fencing around here too. I used to have a horse that had far more respect for electric fencing (broad tape not sheep wire) than post and rail. When he was going through his "Kevin" phase as a colt he ran straight through a post and rail fence pinging the rails off to get to some other horses. I much prefer electric fencing to barbed wire which is the most vile stuff and should only be used for cattle. I had to have Ollie (dog) and Zarak (horse) stitched up after running into barbed wire. Hence my hatred of it and definite preference for electric fencing. The shock is very minor as it usually comes from a car battery. If you touch it yourself (and I have, accidentally many times!) you would find it unpleasant but probably not as bad as you would expect.

Thanks all..it's really interesting stuff. We haven't really had experience of it before as all our other dogs have kept a respectful distance away from sheep and fences.
I agree barbed wire is awful and Tango almost hurt herself more trying to come back throught the barbed wire I think.
I understand more now about why it is used for horses. I appreciate their strength could damage a normal fence. Wouldn't they just learn to jump an electric fence though?

The sheep...is it to deter foxes? Or can sheep damage a wire fence too? In all honesty one of the lambs sneaked under the electric fence anyway!!!!!

I am also left wondering how a working gundog could have a sheep fetish and be any good at her job!!!!

The best electric fencing for horses is mounted on wooden posts using broad tape. This enables you to make it the same height as a post and rail. Once Zarak had learnt a healthy respect for the tape he was safely enclosed even just using the plastic posts. He never even tried to jump out.

Perhaps Tango was never worked near sheep? We are lucky enough not to have that many around here and those we find are on the other side of secure stock fencing with barbed wire along the top.

Poor Tango. Glad he's okay. Electric fencing has just gone up in horse fields around here and I have been worrying about Loki getting zapped. I really detest barbed wire though.

I wouldn`t worry too much. When I was living in Britanny, where electric fences are the norm, all my dogs got zapped once - then avoided them. I think they can suss when they`re off as well (I assume they can hear the slight hum) because they ignored not-live ones.