Ken Allan 
Vegetable
Garden
Notes on electric fences
When an animal touches an electric fence, the electric current travels from the point of touch to the ground (through the animal's feet). If grass or weeds are in contact with the fence, these alternate current paths reduce the shock to the animal (and also increase power consumption of the fence power unit).
For long-legged animals like cattle, the fence is usually higher than the grass. For short animals, like raccoons, the grass quickly becomes a problem.
I can't harvest sweet corn unless I keep out the raccoons. My solution is to run my tiller around the corn patch every few weeks during the growing season. By the time the corn is almost ripe, I have a tilled border around the corn which weed free. At this time, I install the electric fence. I now have about one month before weeds become a problem for the fence.
A regular inspectionr of the fence is necessary to remove corn stalks that have blown down over the fence.
For the fence to be effective, there must be good contact between the ground and the animal's feet. If the soil is dry, electrical contact is poor and the shock ineffective. The solution is to water the soil under the fence.