NOW you tell us this!!!...THAT explains a lot of things!!! lol...
Actually...i grew up on a dairy farm. We had electric fences for break feeding.
So, when the grass was plentiful a farmer runs a wire across the paddock say 10 paces down from the start of the paddock from one side of the paddock to the other. This wire is held up off the ground with steel standards with a plastic loop at the top for the wire to run thru so it dosnt short out. Then a 12v battery is hooked to an electric motor thingy which sends an electric current down thru the wire at about 20 second intervals. If a cow touches it...whack!!!
So i used to get caught out...my step dad could hold onto this thing real tight and diminish the charge...then he would grab me and i would just about come off the bloody ground!!!
If you got a piece of longish grass and held it on the wire, you could just feel it...if you moved closer, the shock increased. Dogs often got one in the tail or sometimes if they sniffed the wire they would let out a loud yell and look at the ground as if something had come up and grabbed them.!!