I caught her easily enough and led her around to the front of the house and turned her loose back in the pen while I went to tighten the fence back up (it was a little saggy from her climbing through.) Sweetheart immediately made a beeline for the fence near where I was working. In the few seconds it took for me to get over to her, she already had her head and both front feet through the fence. She steps through it just like a person would!
I gave the kids a big lecture about how we (myself included!) need to make sure the fence is turned on at all times if no one is riding and figured we'd be ok, but no.
I have 4 small pastures that I rotate the horses through to allow the grass time to grow and recover. We've been turning Raven and Sweetheart into the the west front pasture for the last several days. Yesterday was supposed to be the last day before I rotated them to a different pasture. Last night we were sitting down to supper when I got a call from my friend telling me that Sweetheart was in my next door neighbor's pasture.
Now I can understand the allure. This neighbor doesn't currently have any animals, so the grass in his pasture is long and lush, whereas mine has been pretty well chowed down. But I am not okay with her blatant disregard of our fences. It's not that she's not getting plenty of feed--she was a little too thin when she came here, so I've been giving her a little extra to help get her in better condition so she can better handle being used regularly.
I also checked--the fence was plugged in. I'll be walking the fence line after lunch today to see if it was shorted out somewhere. In the meantime, Sweetheart has been banished to live in the front half of the holding pen and no longer gets to go out to pasture. I don't think she'll be able to climb through the metal panels very easily!