Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Problem this purchase was intended to address: We live in a loft with no doors anywhere in the house except for the bathroom. Our extremely friendly 6lb 1.5 year old orange cat likes to come upstairs into the bedroom where we are sleeping and wake us up to play. For a while, we barricaded the bottom of the stairs with furniture and boxes. This intervention looked awful, was annoying every time we wanted to come downstairs, and was ineffective against our clever kitty. Over the course of a few weeks, the orange cat became an expert long jumper. At three AM we would hear the rapid fire pitter patter of her little paws, then a jump, followed by a Evil Knievel like crash through the boxes on top of a dresser. The victorious Orangey Knievel would emerge from the downstairs, leap onto the bed, and lick us on the face with her sandpaper tongue to signal that it was time to play with her. She also licked me on the finger and I thought someone was holding my finger, which shocked me to my feet with my fist cocked back thinking an intruder was holding my index finger, hey I was tired, it freaked me out. Some nights we were up all night until the cat got tired. Spraying the cat with water or using the cat off sprays on the stairs had no effect whatsoever. I was also tired of being on constant watch for the cat and having to catch her, put her down stairs, ask the cat to please chill out so I can get some work done. I don't want to be mean to the cat. She's isn't malicious, she just wants to be friends. She just can't comprehend boundaries or the fact that we can't play all night because we have to be rested and not crash our cars on the way to work. Concerns when we purchased this product: 1. Will this contraption work as it is described? 2. Will the cat get mad and no longer want to be my friend? 3. Will this hurt the cat? 4. Is our cat too small and will the shock be too great for her petite size? 5. Are we mean people for doing this? Results: 1. I sized the collar to our cat's neck, trimmed the slack from the collar, burned the edge of the collar to keep it from fraying, turned the collar to the on position, put batteries in the transmitter, set the transmitter to AB, placed the transmitter half way up the first flight of stairs, shocked myself with the collar to confirm it worked and ensured it wouldn't hurt our cat, put the collar on the cat, and waited. Well, she walked right up to the transmitter, the collar beeped, but no shock occurred. Then I tightened the collar a little and she did get a eventually get a shock, which startled her. I wanted to condition her to correlate the beep from the collar with getting a shock if she continued to advance, affording her the opportunity to avoid the shock by running away when she hears the beep. To further this goal, she had to be reliably shocked if she continued to advance. So, I had to carefully trim her neck hair under her chin with a pair of scissors to provide better contact for the electrodes. Removing a little hair caused the collar to reliably shock her first time every time. To my knowledge, she has only been shocked three times. Twice on the first day and once on the next. It took a little more than one day for her to understand that she should avoid coming upstairs. I'm happy that she didn't have to get shocked too many times. When she hears the beep she runs away. This product is vigilant 24/7, it works great. 2. I think we get along better now that I have resigned my post as the warden of the upstairs. I don't have to pick her up and drop her over the barrier, squirt her with water, shout like a fool, or chase her back down stairs. Almost all of our contact now is friendly. 3. It will startle the cat. Shock yourself with it, it doesn't feel good but it isn't dangerous. Even if you know it is coming, it will startle you. In our use case, the cat hasn't been shocked many times. She hears the beep and runs away. 4. Our kitty is six lbs and she doesn't like the shock but she seems uninjured. She got startled and did a back flip. Everything seems fine and she hasn't shocked herself many times. 5. I have no desire to injure or make the cat feel bad. I want us to be buddies but I don't want her to wake us up all night. This seemed like the most effective intervention for our situation. I hope we will be able to take off the collar eventually and she will just respect the upstairs boundary. I think the collar is less mean because it disassociates the punishment from my girlfriend and I, she is now in control of causing herself to be punished. ************************************************************* Edit: I removed a star because I'm disappointed there is no option to purchase separate remote to allow the collar to be used without the proximity sensor. The collar was purchased to keep her from coming upstairs and waking us up. Now she is climbing into the cupboards and getting hair on the clean dishes. She is also jumping in the sink. ************************************************************* Edit: Added the star back because all I had to do to keep our cat out of another zone was move the transmitter. It would be nice if there were a shock and a beep counter on the transmitter's display so we could know for sure how many times she has approached the transmitter. To my knowledge she has only been shocked three or four times total. The original location of the transmitter was on the first flight of stairs. The boundary was clearly visible to her because the transmitter would engage her at the first stair. So she could see a defined boundary. We noticed that she would open the cupboards in the kitchen and climb all over the clean dishes. She would also jump in the sink and get herself wet. I took a chance moving the transmitter after about a week and now she will not attempt to go upstairs (even though the transmitter has moved) and she doesn't jump into the cupboards or into the sink because the transmitter is there. My girlfriend is a board certified behavior analyst. She and I both saw the cat get too close to the kitchen sink/cupboards the beep indicating a shock was coming went off and she ran away before she was shocked. So in a very short amount of time our cat has been conditioned to avoid the beep she hears. This product is highly effective and I couldn't be any happier with it.