Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

We got this product a couple weeks ago and are still training our dog due to my wife and my busy schedule. I intend to update this review at a later time with some more thoughts. But here are my impressions so far. This product is a great idea. Our yard is not rectangular, and so we can set this product's circular range to encompass most of our yard. No problems there, unlike others with more normal yards. The look of this product is nice. It fits in with our living room. The previous model of this product would not have though. I also like the rechargeable dog collars. The charger can charge 2 collars at a time. We have only charged the collar once, and it charged very quickly. The manual says a charge can last up to 3 weeks. I also like the looks of the collars. They also look nicer than the previous model. Thankfully they come with a plastic buckle for easy putting-on and removal. And so far, the training has been going rather well. We had to set the collar up to level 3 (1 is a tone, 2 is the lowest shock, 6 is the highest shock), and that seems to work for our very active labrador. I also tested all the shocking levels on myself (and sometimes my neck) since I won't put my dog through something I couldn't go through myself. It is annoying at the lower levels, and painful at the upper levels, but not inhumane when you consider the consequences and that it allows your dog freedom. Here are my dislikes. One thing I did not see mentioned in any other review was the annoying whine of the transmitter. It is similar to the noise you hear from an older TV. Interestingly enough this sound increases as you increase the radius. Since we have our unit on a smaller radius it is bearable in our living room, but it's always there and annoying. On the higher levels, it would be unbearable. So consider putting this product somewhere that it cannot be heard, like a closet, especially if you plan on using it at a larger radius. I also dislike the bright blue power light. I'll have to cover it up. The power cord is a little fragile as well. Inserting the first time, I tried to tuck it under a plastic clip they built in and the rubber housing split, exposing a bit of the wire. I'll contact the company about replacing it and will update the review when I hear back. Finally, the actual performance of the unit. It works, but it is finicky. One very annoying aspect of the unit is how far back inside the boundary you must bring the collar before it stops shocking. We have the unit adjacent to a wall and this is mainly an issue when you walk outside along the wall, not tangent to it. When I bring the sensor over the flag, it is pretty consistent when it starts beeping. However, once the shocking begins, it is as though the receiver is using so much power shocking, that it doesn't pick up the signal again and stop shocking until about 10 feet inside the boundary again. Frustrating. Also, a couple times during testing, the receiver has stopped working and I have been able to walk around outside the boundary without any shocking. One final gripe is the alarm signal that sounds when power is cut. I'd love to put this on a switch so that I save power and don't hear the hissing sound when our dog is inside, but when the unit loses power it beeps loudly for an hour or until you press a button for 5 seconds to silence it. I wish this were optional. Overall, this is a mixed bag. It performs well enough that we are keeping it, and probably would buy it again. However, there are definite shortcomings. Again, I intend to update this when our dog is fully trained. She has already learned to respect the boundaries, but we have not tried it off-leash. Hope this review was helpful in your decision. If there are questions or if there is anything I can clarify, please leave me a comment. -Update Mar 3 2012- After a couple more weeks, I've been a little more pleased with this. I don't notice the high pitched sound very often (until I started to update this review), but that still may be a consideration if you are putting this on a higher setting. We have also been letting our dog loose in the yard now. There have been a couple times she has left, but it is rather uncommon and most of those times she has returned upon correction. As of lately, she's been good enough that we can let her out while we are inside and not worry much (though we still check on her as she is still learning). We have also bumped the level of correction up to 5/6 since at the lower levels she seemed to have to think about whether it was worth it to get shocked if there was a deer she could chase. Now since it is a higher correction, she is much better, which ultimately results in less correction for her. I don't think the inaccuracy of this fence is as big of a deal as I thought before, because I think our dog has just learned to deal with that, and gives the flags (they are still up) wide berth. The times she does choose to get closer, she's prepared to run back if she hears a tone. So overall, I think it is a fairly good product that I would recommend, however, it does have it's shortcomings. Our dog seems very happy that she gets to use the yard without a tie up or leash. One of my concerns when getting this fence was the ethics of it and my dog's response. In fact, I had read some research studies examining electronic collars as a method of training and correction. Some reported that dogs can become stressed when corrected by an electronic collar, however, happily this has not seemed to be the case with our dog.