Live tennis-club fence kills pet

Saba the samoyed was zapped by electricity.

Auckland businesswoman Josephine Grierson has slammed her local tennis club after the family's pet dog was electrocuted by a perimeter fence that went live from a damaged cable.

Ms Grierson said it was a miracle that a human was not killed by the 230 volts of electricity that claimed the life of 2-year-old samoyed Saba.

Saba was electrocuted as Ms Grierson and husband Bruce Ryrie watched daughter Mirella, 9, taking a lesson at the Ngataringa Tennis Club in Devonport at 5.20pm on Tuesday.

The couple were standing in a children's playground which backs on to the tennis courts.

Tennis club president David Aitken said part of the club's perimeter fence was electrified when plastic coating around a cable supplying electricity to floodlights was damaged.

A metal tie-wire holding the cable down made contact with wiring and the fence became live when the lights on court five went on, he said.

Ms Grierson said it was beyond comprehension that the cable would be laid on top of a wire fence and tied with metal.

The grief-stricken family want the club to bury the cable.

"I think that is the least they should be doing," Ms Grierson said. "Everybody who has spoken to me has been as flabbergasted as I have that that was the system, and everybody has found it very hard to get their mind around the fact it wasn't buried in the first place."

Mr Aitken said the fact a child could have touched the fence was "too awful" to think about. He did not believe the fence had been live at any other time, although Ms Grierson said that was hard to comprehend.

"It just so happened at that exact moment that unfortunate dog ... was snuffling around the wire on the outside of the courts, at that exact moment the metal tie-wire touched the electrical cable itself," said Mr Aitken.

Ms Grierson said it was fortunate that her husband called out to the children to carry on playing tennis, as they might have rushed to the fence to see what was happening.

The fence remained live for another two hours before an electrician arrived and discovered 230 volts coursing through the wire.

The electrician told Mr Ryrie that a 50-volt shock could kill a person.

Mr Aitken said the cable conduit had been damaged by people climbing over the fence to the courts. The cable was inspected and immediately fixed.

He said other tennis courts used the same system of running cable along fencelines but the club is seeking advice on the best option and that may include burying the cable.