Havahart Wireless Radial-Shape Dog Electronic Fence

************ THIS IS AN UPDATE TO MY PREVIOUS REVIEW AFTER 3 1/2 MONTHS OF USE*************** The picture is of the burn this collar caused to our Boxers neck!****I have changed my initial review of 4 stars to 1. If I could rate customer service it would be 0. As many others, my unit started to malfunction a week or so ago. First it started out with him going out of the boundary by 100's of ft and the base showing 35ft. Then after relearning the collar and resetting the base it would go off randomly while only 10 ft away! This must have been malfunctioning periodically because we noticed a sore developing on his neck a few weeks ago and had him treated at the vet. He only wears the collar when outside and were busy so about 4 hours a day.******Horrible Customer Service*******I attempted to contact Woodstream through email with no reply. I called 3 times and finally reached a representative. After some back and forth she agreed that the collar was defective. Here's the infuriating part: This is supposed to have a 10 year warranty! But in order to get the collar replaced I was told that I had to send mine in for "repair". So in the meantime we would not have a working fence. To this statement she said " well yes but there's nothing I can do about it". Next question was "why can't I be sent a replacement and send the defective unit back in that packaging?" Her response "that is just how it works, if we can repair it we will." Then I asked how long this takes. She said she did not know but not more than a month. What kind of warranty and customer service is that!? I asked for a supervisor and was transferred to a voicemail. So in conclusion despite all the known issues with these units, the collars in particular and their unwillingness to assist me in a reasonable manner I would say with 100% conviction DO NOT PURCHASE THIS UNIT or anything produced by the Woodstream/Havahart companies. A warranty is only as good as the support. Burning our dogs neck from being randomly shocked due to a faulty collar then saying it could take a month to get a replacement is not a warranty. I wish I could Forward the $200 Vet bill we paid for an antibiotic ointment to put on this burn.original review below for fairness to show how positive I felt about the product before***************************************************************************************************************************************************************I was hesitant to purchase this after reading the negative reviews but I am glad I went with my gut. To be thorough I will attempt to separate this into 3 parts, what is in the box, setup, how well it works and a conclusion. If you have read any of my reviews please be aware they are long and as detailed as I can make them.WHAT'S IN THE BOX:When you open the box your presented with:3 sets of boundry markers - enough for me to mark a 1/2 acre area at 8ft spacing1 collar with a nice quality clip that is arched so it's more comfortable for your pet1 base station with a nice long wire to the power supply1 battery charger with 2 RCR123a lithium batteries ( I'll get to those later )1 pair of long and short prongs for long haired or short haired pets1 heart shaped tool with a light you hold against the collar to verify the exact spot it is sending the correction1 quick setup dvd1 package of screws with wall anchors if you choose to permanently mount the base as well as nice "command" adhesive style velcro style strips (very useful)SETUP:I have a rectangular yard and was still able to make this work how I want it to but it takes some time, this is what I did. Remember this is WIRELESS and susceptible to interference. More specifically it runs at 2.4Ghz which is a very crowded band now that everything from your cordless phone and WiFi use that spectrum. Don't let that deter you because this can be used to you advantage as I will explain.1) I followed the instructions and placed the base about 6ft up using the velcro on an outside wall in the middle of my house. The programming is VERY simple and straight forward. You have fence setup and collar setup. I set the fence to 50ft and the collar to beep only. I then walked outside to get an idea of how it would react. My house is shifted to one side of my lot and I wanted my dog to be stay out of the neighbors but still go 80 ft into the backyard. While walking around testing at first I was upset, I thought all the reviews were correct as it was a completely inconsistent. remember to hold the collar at your DOGS' HEIGHT since that will change it's reception greatly. Then I thought of it like a laptop, the places where it was not a nice circle was where it was obstructed by walls, appliances etc. So I moved it to the second story, long story short I was still having issues. I was about to return it and I decided to do exactly what the directions say not to do. I mounted it on an inside wall perpendicular to the lot about 6ft up and low and behold... the dead spots by the gutters that were inline with it's original location were gone! The issues I had with the signal not reading accurately on my tiered front and sloped rear yard gone!2) A glimmer of hope so I decided to press on. Since I wanted one side of the yard to have more distance than the other I used the previous findings to my advantage. I placed it on the opposite side of the house behind a large TV so it would block the signal towards my neighbor that is 20ft from my side yard. After tinkering with fence distance a few dozen times I was able to get it exactly how I wanted it. Success! Moral of the story, move the base all around the house until you find what works. That is why I loved the velcro, I removed and re-stuck it probably 6 times before I found its' location and it never damaged the paint.3) I taped the collar to a plastic pole I had at my dogs height and started walking forward till it beeped, backed until it stopped and placed a flag. I did this back and forth every 8 ft until I had it marked out the best I could. It was then that I noticed that if someone walked between the station and the collar the distance changed.... well that's no good so again I deviated from the instructions. I stood between the collar and the base at all locations so my dog would not get corrected while being good and within the flags. I ended up adding 5ft to compensate for this but it was very consistent after that. I then set the collar correction to medium and walked up to the boundary in the same manner while using the included heart shaped tool to indicate when the collar is switching from the warning beep to a corrective shock. I moved a few flags a few feet but overall it was working well. I left this setup for 2 days and checked it a few times everyday. The boundary stayed where I had set it to within a foot... I became impressed.4) Turn the collar back to beep only and FOLLOW THE TRAINING INSTRUCTIONS!5) After a week my dog understood the beep meant get closer to the house or I'll get a zap if I keep going. He never related the flags to the correction but it helped me walk him around without passing the boundary. I then raised the correction level 1 step at a time until he would stop testing the boundary. He is a 145lb Mastiff-Boxer mix so he is quite stubborn but medium-high is all it took.HOW WELL DOES IT WORK:1)The base is easy to use, and informative. It allows you to view the collar information in real time so you can see battery level ( more on that ) and the calculated distance from the base. It will beep to alert you when they cross the boundary and when the battery is low. The alarms can be turned off but I find them useful. He has yet to leave the yard despite testing the fence quite a few times now.2) People that complain about battery life... THEY ARE 100% CORRECT the included batteries never laster more than 24hrs despite the collar going into auto sleep when the dog is not moving. They state they are 900mah but are VERY far from it. The included charger is as basic as it can get, pop them in and when the light is green their charged. I have a much better charger from XTAR a VC4 to be exact and it will tell you how much capacity the battery TRULY has. I used both batteries until the base said to replace them and put them in the charger. Low and behold... cheap Chinese batteries, one only took 87mah and the other took 112mah. Very far from the 900 stated on them! I decided to order some quality batteries for it. I purchased 3 AW rcr123 750mah cells and tried again. WOW what a difference... 6 days straight and still going strong. I was taking the originals out at night to try and make them last longer but these I just left in. I swapped it out just because I couldn't believe it was still good. Put it in the charger and it was still at 65%! Battery issue solved I can deal with swapping batteries once a week thats reasonable.3) Stated in the instructions there is a 6ft zone at the boundary. 3 feet of warning and then the corrective action. I've found the warning and correction to be more of a 3ft area. Good to me it makes the boundary more precise.CONCLUSION:1) PATIENCE! It takes some time to get things right but stick with it and it will work.2) Training is a crucial step to an pet containment system so please train your pet3) Take the included batteries and charger and toss them.. their useless. Purchase a quality charger and RCR123 3.7v lithium batteries. Stick to name brands such as AW, Nitecore, Olight etc. you get what you pay for with batteries. Avoid any that are listed under a name like *****fire they are more of the same.. junk. A good cell will be around 600-750mah. The ones that claim 900 like the ones in the kit are just marketing scams.If you take your time, buy good batteries and a charger you should be happy with this kit. I took off one star for the poor quality batteries and charger. All wireless fences require tinkering and fine tuning. With a tiered yard and ledge this was my only option and I am happy with the final outcome.

The most important thing is that it keeps our dog in the yard, most of the time...After having used both the petsafe system and this system, the communication between the collar and the unit base is far superior. The fact that you can look at the display and see how far away the collar is makes this worth the extra cost but it really does do a good job of keeping our large and fairly stubborn dog in the yard on the medium-high setting (medium wasn't quite enough).Training was easy. I first shocked my arm before putting it on the dog to see how it felt and be fair to the dog of what I was going to put him through. It was uncomfortable but it is more like getting zapped by static than a tazer. The flags were unnecessary. He quickly figured out that beeping meant he needed to come back to the house. Sometimes at night we have to turn his radius down because he sometimes goes out in the yard to bark at random animals in the dark and he quickly returns to the porch as soon as the collar beeps (he rarely lets it shock him anymore).Our dog doesn't dread the collar. When we change the battery, a treat is enough to get him to happily let us put it back on. The battery life is hugely over-rated on the item description. We're doing good to get 2-3 days but our dog is probably more active than most.I have seen that many complained that the radius varies by 10 feet or so. I have also observed this to be true but it doesn't seem to be a problem because our dog knows to come back to the house when the collar beeps. He generally stays 10-20 feet inside of the "beep" radius which isn't a problem in our current yard where he usually stays on a 160 foot radius. We used this for a couple weeks at our old house where the yard was only about 70 feet wide and it didn't work as well because in order for him to get around the house, the radius had to be large enough he could go in the neighbors' yards. I have seen other neighbors use buried fence systems with considerably more success.I'm not entirely sure how the containment works on this one, but it only provides correction for a while and does allow the dog to come back in the radius without punishment which is not true of the in-ground and non-communicating systems.This brings me back to the part about keeping him in the yard MOST of the time. There is a sweet spot where the signal has to pass through several walls in our house and then travel down hill that he figured out that he can run out of the yard and visit with a neighbor dog buddy of his without correction. He developed a bad habit of running out of the yard via this method when I was leaving to go to work in the mornings. I always found him in our yard upon my return. I finally had to get out and scold and send him back a few mornings to break this habit.Also, as others have mentioned, the part of the collar that holds the antennas in place is trash. I looked at ordering a new one, refused to pay that much, and proceeded to use electrical tape to tape the antennas back in place. This fix has held up better than the original fabric.Overall, I have found this to be a good product and I have been happy with it. We live beside a very busy road and it has kept my dog alive and near home.

In the world of basic home use wireless dog collars this is as good as it gets. It competes mainly with the permeate systems, not the 600+ hunting dog training collars. I got got the system to keep my Siberian husky from running off into the neighboring woods (in fenced property). It keeps her in my yard at whatever range I set (lowest setting does it for her, she now recognizes the warning beep). I didn't have to do extensive barrier training for her either. I now have 2 dogs on a 2 acre radius. Only issues I had had weren't product related but they were - I learned when happens when u leave it on too tight (sorry for rub blister dog), I learned a dog sittingnear the barrier runs down the battery faster than if they were sitting on the porch, and I learned that u need to routinely make sure the probes are acrewed in all the way. I lost a probe 3 weeks ago and went to put my replacement pair on, and the washer that holds them on was t in my kit - luckily havaharts customer service sent me one free of charge (great customer service).

Works for the most part, however, I don't think it'll work for my dogs. I have 2, 130lbs+ Anatolian / Great Pyrenees mix.They like to wander. They'll go out and suffer through the shock, but usually don't go out again when the make it back into the perimeter.As others have said, long range can be a bit iffy. The shorter the range, the more consistency I've found...even through buildings. I have a garage and chicken coup and at longer ranges, it won't go the distance with the buildings in the way, but at shorter ranges, works well.If you plan on going full range with this device, there shouldn't be much obstruction or hills, but should work well within the shorter ranges.