My fenced dog area (1 1/2 acres combination stock panel--small squares at bottom and graduated to larger at the mid and top area 16ft panels and 52 inches high)has contained my various sizes of dogs for 10 years without a problem. However; Murphy (wirehaired terrier) has discovered that if he puts his head thru the mid range area, he can wiggle himself thru; and out he goes to explore whatever is catching his eye. I fear that he is going to teach the other dogs that could fit thru the squares (but presently are content not to) to follow him. I have resorted to either taking him out on leash or tie out in another area. This is defeating the objective of free excersize and I hate the tie out. Does anyone have any suggestions as how to correct this escape problem?

If you have access to electricity wher the fence attaches to the house or the barn for example, you could run a single strand of electric wire (high tensile) off a charger (available thru stock fencing catalogues or farm stores like Agway) along the inside of your fence where the dog is getting thru. Run the wire where the dog must come in contact with it when it goes thru the fence. If digging under is a problem, run a wire a few inches above the ground along the inside (or outside of it's a predator problem) -- if climbing over is a problem, run a wire along the top where the dog will touch it when it jumps up.

You can get switches to turn the electric on & off for convenience and you can get chargers with low to high "zap" levels depending on your needs. You will probably find that once the dog has been zapped once it will learn pretty fast not to fool with the fence. This is also pretty inexpensive to do.

If you don't have a 110 volt outlet available, they have electric fencers that work using a 12 volt battery. The shock is a very high voltage, low amperage discharge. Startling but not harmful.

One of the problems with maintaining electric fences is that you have to continually trim the grass and weeds away from wire or it will short out. When I was a kid, Dad used to use them to help keep hogs fenced in. Worked well until a rainy spell started the weeds growing again. Then the drill was 1) chase the pigs back in, 2) trim all the weeds away from the fence, 3) chase the pigs back in again. The mostly German Shepherd we had back then really enjoyed helping with part 1) & 3). Krypto was pretty much useless on helping with 2).

With the effort you would spend putting up an electric fence, you could probably install an invisible fence. Cost would be a bit more. Maintenace would be less. And you would need to use it only for the problem pooch. Watching a terrified dog bounce from one hot wire to the other quickly loses all amusement value.

In any case, DO NOT HOOK THE FENCE WIRE DIRECTLY TO THE 110 VOLT WIRES. It could kill you the dog and you. Since you are using the wire hog panels, an electrical short would electrify the whole fence.