I must say that I came into this purchase fairly unhappy and skeptical with the idea of needing an invisible fence. My dog is a real escape artist, and very athletic with a strong drive towards whatever has his interest. He was climbing over my 4’ tall horse fence. I added three strands of barbed wire at the top to extend it to 6’ and he climbed right over/through that too. Building a taller fence he couldn’t get over around my 2 acres was more than I was willing to do, and further our open view through the wire vs being blocked by a neighborhood style fence is a big deal to us. I don’t like the idea of shocking my dog, and I didn’t want to pick a “budget” option and risk mistreating my dog. Still, I read numerous positive reviews and decided to give the Petsafe system a shot. I picked it vs. more expensive options largely because I wanted to put it in myself, and I don’t like paying subscriptions for services after a purchase. Installation was a pain, but no more than it should have been. I have almost two acres, so I needed more wire. I bought a 1000 foot roll from amazon made by Extreme Dog Fence. The listing said it was thick and sturdy in the description and reviews, but I found it to be flimsier than the 500’ provided by Petsafe with the kit. I bought a used old style edger to “dig” the 3” deep trench that I put the wire in, and used a masonry blade on my angle grinder to score deeper into joint lines I had in my sidewalk to cross over two spots. I then filled the joints with self leveling concrete caulk. Turned out great. Dragging an edger backwards over 1000+ feet of thick grass and then jamming the wire into the cut left behind really sucked. It took much longer than I thought it would, and was much harder work than I thought it would be. Once everything was installed it worked great. I started training the dog per the instructions in the manual. I started for the first day with just tones, and then moved it up to level 2 which had tones and a mild shock (they call it static, but let’s be real….it’s shock). My dog didn’t show any signs of noticing level two. The instructions tell you to move up a level until you can tell the dog notices. Well, he noticed the next level and let out a yelp and freaked out…..which was way more of a response than I anticipated. The instructions indicate he might looked around or scratch at his neck. So, I thought I’d check it out for myself and I let myself get shocked first at the level 2 which is just for training (the one he didn’t seem to notice). I couldn’t feel it at all on my fingers, and when I put it up to my neck I could only faintly feel anything. I bumped it up a level to level 3 and tried it on my fingers and holy crap it shocked the heck outta me! I couldn’t even hold onto the collar. I thought I had cheaped out and wasted time and money on an inferior system that didn’t have accurate enough settings for training and correction. I thought I needed a system with dozens of levels of correction so I could take a more custom approach. The Petsafe only has 5. One for tone only, one designed for training and then only really three for correction. So, I called customer service to look into a return. What I got was the most sympathetic and helpful customer service agent I have spoken to in a long time. I told him I wanted to return the item and he went as far as sending me replacement wire so that I could have all the items that came in the kit for a smooth return. Then I started doing research on what my next system would be, and talked to a dog trainer from one of the in ground fence dealerships. Turns our all the in ground fences I could find had similar setups, and the trainer told me that I had my dog out of the gate too quickly. He told me to spend a lot more time on Level 2….10 days or more to make sure the dog really got the concept and only then to move on to higher levels. I called Petsafe again and described my concerns about how hard the collar hit at the lowest correction level (level 3) and got the same incredibly responsive level of service. They sent me a new collar to ensure I wasn’t working with a faulty one. Meanwhile I continued my training at level 2 and got my dog thoroughly accustomed to the concept that when the tone goes off and he approaches the flags…..it’s time to retreat back into the safe zone. I got the replacement collar, and found that the training level “2” was a little easier for me to recognize, but not very much so, and the level three still hit very hard, but maybe not as hard as the previous collar. Whatever the case, it was very close to my previous experience. I decided to try the new collar with my now almost completely trained dog. He did very well! I found that at level “3” which freaked him out the first time he experienced it and which had a really profound effect on me, didn’t seem to bother him too much. He knew something was coming if he went too far past the flags, and if he was stubborn enough he would stand there through the shock. I turned it up to level 4, and now even with the biggest temptation I saw him go into the “no go” zone a few feet, stop and then turn around and come back to where he should have been. No outsized response, he just came back to the safe zone with no drama. I’ve been letting him free range for a few days now and the system seems to be working perfectly. I’ll check back in if my experience changes, but for now I’m very pleased with the system, and even more pleased with the customer service. My only caution is that I think the training recommended in the directions is too fast for many dogs. I spent 10 days doing what the manual said to spend two days on. When I rushed it initially I got a confused/upset dog. Update after 2.5 months Well, my dog is real stubborn and I had to upgrade to the stubborn dog collar for another $100. Still not quite completely effective until I built a physical barrier over his favorite escaping spot which kept him in the correction zone. Big pain, but it seemed as though we had things solved. After 2.5 months, the system started intermittently failing. The loop just acted as though there was a break in it. I had a couple splices in the line and I went and triple checked to be sure they were installed properly. We have lots of gophers on our property, so maybe a line got nicked by one…..who knows. End of the story is with all the time effort and money spent I can’t rely on the system. To make matters worse, I’m one two days outside of amazon’s return window for the stubborn dog collar and well outside their window for the system itself. Petsafe will not honor returns because I bought it through Amazon. Their advice was to try to sell it and get some of my money back. NOT HAPPY ANYMORE
