Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is lengthy, but it's primarily factual and will give you the lowdown on these collars. I researched A LOT of shock collars before purchasing these. If you have questions about something I didn't mention here, feel free to ask me and I'll help you out the best I can. So far, and despite all the horror story reviews on here, my collars and remote have worked out well and were well worth the price paid. I use them on two australian blue heelers (One is 4 months old and 10 pounds, the other is 1 year old and 40 pounds.) Each collar operates between 4 settings: Light ---> The little green light will flash repeatedly when activated. Beep ---> A loud and annoying beep will sound over and over for as long as you hold down the beep button. Vibrate ---> There are 100 levels of vibration to choose from. Shock ---> There are also 100 levels of shock to choose from. An 9 year old boy bravely volunteered to test a few of the shock levels. He described evels 1-6 as non-painful. Levels 7-12 gave him a a little bit more of a "bite." And he said level 13 zapped him pretty good... The beep and vibration settings are very effective on my youngest pup. I very rarely have to shock her, and when I do, it only needs to be set at level 1 [out of 100]. My older pup is a bit more stubborn and strong-willed, therefore the beep and vibration don't really work well for him if he's bound and determined to be mischievous. I've had to shock him on level 16 or 17 in order to keep him from running into the road or towards a person. Normally levels 10-12 are enough to grab his attention and remind him that he is not the alpha when it comes to his sometimes dumb decisions. I will say "Here" when I want him to come. If he does not come after the first command, I'll give him a shock on level 5 or 6 and progressively raise the level while first giving the command "Here" until he begins moving in my direction. If he stops moving in my direction, I will lower it back down to 5 or 6 and then administer a consistent shock until he begins moving in my direction again. This has proven to be highly effective, as he comes nearly every time I say "Here." An occasional deer can influence him to ignore my commands, at which times I will shock him until he remembers he must obey. It is important to only give the command once before shocking/beeping/vibrating them, because if you give the command six times before a shock, they will eventually realize that they can ignore your command five times before they actually have to listen and obey. So remember, one command: "Here." If they ignore you, low level shock(or beep or vibrate). It will not take long for them to realize there are consequences for disobeying. Please, for the love of God, DO NOT ELECTROCUTE YOUR PUP ON LEVEL 100. This is an exceptional training tool, and it requires a high level of responsibility and discipline from the person controlling the remote. As I mentioned earlier, beep and vibrate work well with some pups. With the youngin, I start by giving a command, then beeping her if she doesn't respond. Then another command, then a vibrate (on level 100) if she doesn't respond. Usually by this time, she's either headed in my direction, or she's already at my feet. The range is 300 meters I think... I've zapped my oldest pup from all the way across the field. It was a loooong ways (out of earshot), but it still zapped him good and he bolted straight back towards the house. As far as the waterproof-ness of the collars, I wasn't immediately confident that the design would be sufficient towards keeping water out.... But the other day my little pup dove straight into the creek (which was about 40 degrees at the time...lol) and then she came bounding back out of there, collar still working. It has not given me any problems since that little swim adventure, but come summertime, I can edit this review and give you a better idea of the durability under the water. But so far, the collar on my youngin has survived one submersion in the creek and countless roll-arounds in the snow and mud puddles. The one thing that I ABSOLUTELY HATE about this whole deal is the remote. Don't get me wrong, I can easily switch back and forth between collar 1 and collar 2 with the buttons it has, but it's just not designed intelligently. There should be a switch, like an actual physical, up-and-down switch on the side, top, or front of the remote to switch between collar one and two. Otherwise, you have no idea which collar you are set on unless you look at the screen, and in a fast paced, think-quick scenario when a dog is bolting toward the road or chasing after the chubby mailman, you don't always have the convenience and luxury of taking the time to look at the screen, clicking on the (1&2) button, making sure it's on shock mode, and then administering the shock in time before your pup's standing in the roadway or nibblin' on the mailman's rear end. It'd be 100 times better to have a switch, so you could always know (just by feeling the position of the switch with your finger) that when the switch is up, it's on collar one, and visa versa for collar two. A similar arguement can be made for the "shock" feature. I would like a separate button from the other three settings (Light, Beep, Vibrate) so in case of a similar emergency as I just described, you won't have to look at the screen to be able to know whether your shocking the pup or perhaps just turning on the blinky light (which works pretty good when you lose your dog in the dead of night.) The way it is now, you have cycle through all four settings using one button. MY BIGGEST COMPLAINT ABOUT THE REMOTE: THERE IS NO WAY TO LOCK THE DARN BUTTONS. IN OTHER WORDS, IF YOU PUT THE REMOTE IN YOUR POCKET, OR CLIP IT ON YOUR BELT, AND THEN YOU ACCIDENTALLY LEAN UP AGAINST SOMETHING AND THE **SHOCK*** BUTTON GETS PRESSED, YOU WILL BE SHOCKING THE HECK OUT OF YOUR DOG UNTIL THE BUTTON IS UNPRESSED. I have done it once, and it made me pretty mad cause my older dog took a pretty good zap, which caused him to yip a little, and it was all because I was carrying a box into my house and the corner of the box accidentally pushed the shock button. It's just not practical to create a shock collar remote and not put a lock feature on it to prevent such accidents. Petrainer made a wonderful product....but I just wanna look at the guy who designed the remote and ask him what in the world was he thinking. All in all, I give this set 90 points out of 100.