Copyright (c) 2010 Nadine Davis

Fencing is a very important and common way of keeping man's best friend contained in a yard (and sometimes is used to keep him out of an area of the yard). Choosing the right fencing option can make a difference to your pets happiness as well as your own happiness. After all, we want to keep our animals safe from harm and danger. Allowing them to roam the streets can often cause all sorts of problems and in many cases, land us with large fines to pay, and in the worst case, can lose us our pets forever.

Wire fencing is the most appropriate type of fencing for dogs as they cannot chew through the wire. Choosing the right fence can be dependent on the size of your dog or what his temperament is like, among many other reasons. You can easily purchase or build a Fence that is suitable to meet all of your needs.

Depending on the size of your dog, you have several options to chose from in heights, ranging on 1200mm to 2100mm. A general rule, 1200mm fence would be appropriate for keeping in a small dog for example a Chihuahua. For medium sized dogs such as cattle dogs a 1500mm-1800mm fence would be more suitable. When trying to create a fence for larger dogs such as a Rottweiler or Great Dane a 2100mm fence or higher is more likely to be needed.

There are various types of wire fences, but chain wire fencing seems to be the most appropriate for the containment of dogs. If you are building the fence yourself, there are a few things you need to take into account both in the planning of your fence and in the actual building of it. Here are some things to keep in mind;

=> Make sure you buy a wire with small openings (or gauge as commonly known in the industry) with less than 6cm so that little puppies or small pets that you want to keep inside the yard can't escape and get themselves hurt.

=> When driving in the posts make sure you wet the ground before doing this to make your job easier! The posts have to be nice and snug and deep into the ground (at least 600mm) so they don't fall over.

=> When you stretch out the roll of wire fencing material, make sure it is wrapped and secured tightly around the pole, and as tight to the ground as possible. You don't want your pet to be able to dig or burrow underneath it.

Whether you are building a fence or hiring a Fencing professional, make sure that you plan the right fence from the beginning taking into account all of the needs you want covered upon completion of the project.