I agree with Aly. Put up a fence.
I live in a rural area, and most of the dogs here run loose. I am forever seeing a dead dog in the ditch, having been hit by a car. Or a dog with a broken leg. Or hearing some kids talk about finding a dead dog in a leg hold trap, after it bled or starved to death. My neighbors lab was brutally mauled and killed by a pit bull, in front of her two grade-school aged sons, when both dogs where running loose. My ex's dog was blinded by porcupine quills shot into his eyeball. Dogs are routinely shot and killed if a farmer or rancher suspects the dog is bothering his livestock ... and "bothering" has different meanings to different people. I could go on and on with what I have seen around here.
Dogs allowed to run loose in rural areas are, for the most part, diposable animals. If this dog gets shot or hit by a car or killed ... no big deal, because there's a litter of pups in the barn anyway. I don't believe you feel that way about your dogs, though, and I would hate for you to find out the hard way about the extreme dangers of dogs running loose.
Not to mention the fact that letting your dogs run loose, going onto other people's private property is extemely rude and NOT a good-neigborly sort of thing to do.
But I'd be willing to budget a little extra for vet bills just to allow him to have a happier life.
It may be a LOT for vet bills, or it may be zero for vet bills, if you go looking for your dog and find he or she dead. And a happier life? I don't know about that. Dogs are pack animals, happy with their pack ... you. Sure, most dogs will explore given a chance, but that is certainly not to say that dogs who are not allowed to roam free are unhappy!
Put up a fence.
"We give dogs the time we can spare, the space we can spare and the love we can spare. And in return, dogs give us their all. It's the best deal man has ever made" - M. Facklam
"We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers - thieves planting flags, murderers carrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonizers of dreams."- P.S. Beagle
"All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king." - J.R.R. Tolkien
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