PetSafe Stay & Play Compact Wireless Dog Fence, Up to 3/4 Acre

This is the first wireless fence we purchased and it will be the only kind we purchase if we have to replace it. I love the fact that this unit is wireless and there are no underground wires or anything like that. We have this unit setting out of sight at the back of our bookcase. We decided to turn the unit around so at night we wouldn't notice the bright blue light that admits from the front of the unit. We live in a small subdivision so traffic isn't usually too bad and for the most part people are very considerate since most of them have dogs and cats to begin with. We set the perimeter up on 45 ft which lets them go up to about 15 feet from the road at our house. Set up was simple and took about 45 minutes to an hour outlining the perimeter with the flags. make sure you are at the dogs neck level when you set up the flags so they will get the correct reading. After all was set up, i took both dogs, male (Stanley, 4 months old and 14 lbs) and female (Olivia, 9 months old and 15 lbs) Miniature Schnauzers, out to play and show them the fence. I set both collars to train mode and with some of their training treats I took them up to the flags and once their collars started beeping i walked them back to the safe zone and gave them the treat. We only went through about 5 flags set up through the yard, played a little bit and went back in. The next day we did the same thing and went through about 5 more flags. I noticed on the third day once they heard the beep the would almost always turn around and come back to me. Unlike the directions, on the fourth day, I placed the collars on setting one, the least harmful shock, and let the out in the yard.Both dogs did great the first few times by staying in the flag zone and coming back to the safe zone once they heard the warning beep. However, the 4th, maybe 5th time we went outside my male dog Stanley got shocked and came running back to me startled and a little confused. I played with him and let him know that he was ok and walked him back up to the fence and as soon as we heard the beeping sound again he turned around and went back to the safe zone. I again praised him for turning around and we went back inside About a week later he got shocked again and so far, that has been the last time. My female dog Olivia did a lot better. She has only been shocked once and it was about 2 weeks into training. A few days after the dogs were last shocked we removed all the perimeter flags.As of this review, we have been using this item for a little over 2 months with fantastic results. Sometimes when we get home and are in a hurry to get them out the door we forget to put their shock collars on but they seem to have memorized their boundaries because they have not yet went passed their perimeter with or without the collars on since the last shock incident. One thing that we did do different than the instruction book is we took both dog's collars off when we put their shock collars on and put their regular collars back on when the shock collars came off. I'm not sure if they know they don't have the shock collars on all the time or what but they both seem to know their limits and this is especially helpful on the times you forgot the collars or if they are both charging. I do like that the charging cord will charge both collars on the same cord, but I do wish their was an option to buy a one or two dog set up so I wouldn't have had to purchase a separate collar because they are not cheap My only complaint is that if you have to use the high setting there is a very obnoxious humming noise that comes from the machine.The reason I did not take a star away from this is because we use the max on the low setting since that covers what we need. If our yard was bigger, I probably would have rated this 4 stars instead of 5.

This is an excellent product, in my experience, and I’ve had it over five years. I use it with a rambunctious German shepherd and added a housemate’s stubborn little husky; I have two transmitters so they have a little over an acre where they can romp to their hearts’ content. My pup is out there a good four hours total on an average nice day. Setting up the second receiver was easy, and adding the second collar was just a matter of charging it and putting it on the dog. Make sure the receiver is placed in a fairly high location; I have one in my attic. I’ve taken this when traveling and staying in other houses. Bring some flags if you do this, but it was a great way to confine my dog w/o having to tie her. I keep the correction for my shepherd at the top level, and it’s remarkably effective. The deer in my fields know as well as she does where the perimeter is, and the rotten creatures will come within 15 ft of her (I swear they’re snickering at her). I get 2-3 weeks on a charge with the collar turned on all the time. Original collar... at least 5 years old. Be sure you remove it during power outages. Also, ALWAYS MAKE SURE IT’S OFF BEFORE LETTING THE DOG IN A CAR (the metal will block the transmitter signal). And especially resist the temptation to leave the collar on the dog all the time, esp. when left alone: power outages and other problems do come up. It was a pain to determine the perimeter on a rocky and steeply sloped part of my yard (the rest was easy). The base transmits in a sphere, so take that into account during setup, and don’t be surprised if the perimeter is quite irregular. I kept checking every 2-3 feet when placing flags (for large properties you might want to get extra flags). The perimeter sometimes varies as much as 3-4’. Trained my dog by walking inside the perimeter every day for about 3 days, and after that she had it down. Like a lot of dogs, she knows what it means when she’s wearing the collar and when she’s not, but she still stays in the perimeter from habit, and many other dogs will probably do the same. She looks forward to having the collar put on, since she knows it means she can go chase squirrels. Some dogs will take off as soon as you remove the collar, though, so be careful. Truly devious dogs will hang out in the audible correction range and let it wear down the battery so they can run the perimeter. I suggest replacing the dog in this case. (Okay, maybe not) Customer service is either Canada- or US-based, and they were very helpful whe I had questions about the correction levels. The rep mentioned that part of their training involved testing the correction levels on their own palms to get an idea exactly what they felt like. I tried it: ouch! But it’s not inhumane (for the dog). Once they know the perimeter, there’s generally no reason why they’ll need to feel the correction more than a couple of times. The audible signal starts well before the correction, so they have plenty of time to decide if they’re really going to be stupid. Problems: I’ve had to resynch the transmitters twice now after power outages. That’s all. This product is more expensive than many on the market, but in my experience the quality, design, and customer service make it well worth the cost. Can’t find a manufacturing location on the base, but the collar is (or at least was) made in Canada. I recommend this product for anyone with a reasonably sane dog and a property that’s at least moderately level, with no metal obstructions. Place transmitter at least 4’ away from large appliances, radiators, and other sources of interference. Once it’s set up, it’s great!

I had one that worked really well for over 2 years, then the collar randomly began to go off while the collar was on and the dog was well within limits. Then it didn't go off when my dog went out of limits. I chalked it up to age and replaced it with a new unit thinking the problem was solved. For a bit it seemed fine, then again the collar started randomly going off. My dog became very upset and we both never knew what to expect. I had the collar OFF on my desk and it buzzed/beeped on more than one occasion. This was a really expensive experience for me, but also traumatic for my sweet dog - who runs for one of us every time any type of beep goes off. I have no idea what happened - nothing in our environment changed and the collars were fully charged when they went off. I'm so disappointed, and out quite a bit of money since this seemed to work ok when we got it and we are now out of the return window. Sorry for the poor review PetSafe, I genuinely don't like to complain and like I said the first one was good for a long time and worked really well and I recommended it to many people, but I'd be scared to try another and I'm not sure what other options are out there.

I bought the PIF-300 in March of 2010. Recently, 2 of the 4 collars on that unit just stopped working. After checking this newest version out, I decided to spend the money and get lighter weight, water resistant and rechargeable collars. Setup was a breeze - considering all 4 of my dogs already knew their boundaries on the old model and this model provides a little further coverage. I just plugged it in, set it in the same central location, charged the batteries, set the shock level, and away we went. Compared to the previous version, this is definitely an improvement as far as the collars go. The units sit INSIDE the collar, much neater and more secure fit. The older unit sat outside the collar and was bulky and fell off. The shock prongs are firmly fastened to the base unit on the collar. The older model prongs were constantly coming loose and washers falling out. The base unit is 1/4 the size of the older model so it takes up much less space. The black collars and units are more sleek looking than the older version with the red collars. First complaint...These collars have NO clip for your dog tag. It's pretty important to me that my dogs are wearing their tags at all times, in case they escape. They are all micro-chipped, but on a weekend or evening, that does no good. I want a clearly visible tag for anyone that might find them. I had to jam it into the plastic clip section for now. Second complaint....The base unit makes a fairly noisy winding sound and gets pretty hot to the touch. The older model was very quiet and didn't get hot at all. Because these new collars will work with the older unit, I'm holding onto the old base "just in case". Third complaint....Apparently this model has an alarm that will sound when the power goes off. It will continue sounding for 30 minutes. This feature should be an OPTION. If the power should go off while I'm at work, and my dogs are inside (as they always are), this alarm will sound and annoy them for that time period. I don't find this feature necessary since I'm pretty sure I'll know that the power is out without the alarm sounding. All in all, this model is an improvement over the previous version. I will say that I hope this unit and collars give me more than 2½ years life compared to the older model. 10.8.12 UPDATE. So, after one week of use, all 4 collar batteries died. Considering they were used perhaps 7 hours total, not impressive. I got more life out of the older model collar. Furthermore, all 4 batteries went from green (assume lowest % at 60%) to red (assume highest % at 20%) with NO yellow indication and within 10 minutes of seeing a flashing green light AND some while sitting overnight (when not in use at all). How batteries drained themselves that much, that fast or when not in use, is beyond me. Then they were put on the charger and fully charged within 20 minutes (when the manual states it takes 2-3 hours to achieve full charge)? Either the light indicators are malfunctioning (since no yellow light) or these collars themselves are not functioning properly. When you have 4 dogs that need this system to function to contain them, and the collars go from green to red in mere minutes, you are left with dogs that can escape because the collar isn't working and you received no notification of it. The warning system of yellow flashing lights isn't working on any of my collars.

I copied my review from the one I wrote on the collar to here, so if you look at an additional collar for this system, you'll see the same review: We have 2 dogs on this system and one of them is a long, thick haired Husky mix who was EXTREMELY hard to keep in the yard. He likes to run, and I didn't think anything could hold him. This Stay & Play system has been awesome. The first few days they both tested it a few times, running after rabbits and trying to follow people out walking their dogs. The Husky tried to run through it (he's been on an underground fence before) and quickly learned that running through it was not a good idea. They have both stayed in the yard ever since. We live in the country on top of a hill, one side of which is steep and ends about 50 feet down from where we keep the transmitter. I was worried that it would be a problem, but it doesn't seem to affect the signal at all. In fact, the only thing that I've found does affect the signal are trees. We have a line of trees at the end of our yard and they bounce the signal in several feet. Doesn't bother us any though because we prefer that they don't go past them anyway. The battery life isn't bad. We had to recharge it after the first 2 weeks, but I think that was because they were testing it. It's been 3 weeks since then and we haven't had to charge it again. I'm guessing sometime within the next week, we'll need to recharge based on other reviews. Our dogs wear them 24/7 and we don't turn them off when they come in. It doesn't seem to bother them at all to wear them. I haven't seen any signs of irritation on their skin. We have a 2 story log house. The logs do not affect the signal at all (not sure why trees do). The dogs can go upstairs and there is no interruption of the signal. As I understand it, the system is based on a radio signal. As long as the collar receives the signal, the dog is not shocked. There are no blind spots where the dog can go through. If the dog goes out of range, it loses the radio signal, and it will give a warning and within a second start shocking, and the dog must either return to the yard or after several seconds the shock eventually stop. They are several LONG seconds for the dog, if they choose not to return to the yard. There is not much time between the warning and the shock, but as long as the dog learns the boundary it's not really an issue. We had to put both collars on level 4 for our dogs. We tried the lower levels but they are very stubborn and rabbits are really fun to chase.

We live in the country, so have no fence and the dog we had recently got would NOT stay in our yard and it was becoming a problem. I was SO excited to see this and thought it would be the perfect solution to our program. We received the first one and the collar would not charge; given the circumstances this was extremely frustrating, however, the company promptly got us a new one, free of charge. After the second one arrived it didn't appear to be working, which of course was even more frustrating. After cooling down a bit, my husband went back to square 1 with the directions and realized it was on the wrong setting. Now it works great! Our dog quickly realized his boundaries. We've had it going on almost 2 months now and I've only charged the collar once (we turn it off at night). It probably didn't need to be charged but we were going out of town and I wanted to make sure it worked for our family member who was watching the dog for us. I wish there was an option to make a larger area for the dog to roam, without purchasing the extender - we have it on the highest setting of 90' in each direction. Upon reading reviews for the extender, it appears metal will interfere with the signal. Bummer for us, as our metal barn is the only other area to plug it into to give him more area. Overall though, it has been a huge relief and gotten rid of a big headache! Update: The collar randomly slipped off my dog when he started running. Thankfully I saw it happen and was able to put it back on, thinking it was a one time mishap. However, the next time he went to run the same thing happened. Not sure why the collar isn't secure anymore, but I had to get out my hot glue gun to glue it together to make sure the collar didn't slip off again. I'm hoping this will last. If not, I am hoping PetSafe sells collars separately.

This system has been working well for us. We have a lab almost a year old so I have the longer prongs on it & have it set to a higher setting. She says in the yard with it on. However, I now have the 4th collar on the way. The first one started making a horrible sick cow beeping sound, it sounded like it was dying. They very kindly sent me a new one but had to wait 7-10 business days to get it. The second one we are not sure if it was the collar or the charger, but I would plug the charger in & it wouldn't recognize it. The sent me a new collar & a charger. Now 2 months later the third one is not making any noise at all. I refuse to check to see if its making a "static correction" like they would like me to do but when I place the collar by my ear I can barely hear the whisper beep coming from it. I really wish I could get a collar that would work. The idea of the system is great, it just has a lot of flaws. Upate 6/25/13 - The 4th one didn't last long either :( 5 days ago it started not staying on. It will shut off & turn back on without touching the button. Customer Service was extremely helpful once again & sending another one on the way. Someone higher up is supposed to be calling me this week as well. I really want this product to work, at this point they should hire me to be a product tester!!

Think it won't happen to you? Yeah, neither did I, but six months ago my 5 year old Border Collie/German Shepherd Dog chased a squirrel out into the road and got clipped by a car. She was lucky; only a broken front leg, but the leg was broken badly, had problems healing and six months, countless animal hospital visits, two surgeries and shock wave therapy later, she is finally able to roam free in the yard again. I have over two acres of land and two dogs. My other dog is a 7 year old German Shepherd mix as well and while she respects her boundaries, my five year old tends to get "in the zone" when she is chasing something and nothing else matters. Until now that is... I bought two of these units so that I can overlap the signal and got two collars that way. Set up was a breeze; the worst part is figuring out where you want your boundaries to be and then setting the flags. They are pretty much plug and play once the collars are charged. I have a garage on the back of my property so putting one there and one in the house garage ended up working near perfectly, with the exception that it creates a bit of a figure eight, so the boundary is pretty narrow in some spots. Obviously if I moved the units closer together this would not be an issue but I wanted to get the maximum acreage out of the units to allow my dogs as much freedom as possible while still keeping them safe. I won't lie to you...it hurts to train them, especially if they are older dogs and have had a lot more freedom in the past. It takes them a few days to understand why they can't go the same places that they used to and when they get the "correction" it momentarily hurts them and confuses them. Yes, it hurts. I tried it on myself. It hurts while it happens but leaves no lasting effect. When they yelp and jump it will break your heart, but it is absolutely needed. The level of correction depends on the dog. My older dog was on a 3 and was traumatized for two days afterward but has since gotten over it. My younger dog, the one that got hit by a car, was not phased by 3 at all and I ended up giving her the highest setting. It only took two corrections for her to understand that when she hears the beep she'd better turn back and get back onto the property. Tonight she was chasing a bird at full speed and stopped short before the boundary. I was amazed. Is the system expensive? You betcha. But it's worth every penny. After spending upwards of $6k to fix my girl after getting hit by a car, trust me, it's a pretty small price to pay. Not to mention not having to walk her in the yard on the cold New England winter nights anymore which is priceless. I love that they can once again use the doggie door to the house and come and go as they please without me ever worrying that they will leave their yard. It only takes 10 seconds for them to make a bad decision and get hurt. A couple of notes: I had some issues with wishy-washy boundaries and lack of beeping/correction when I first set it up and read that you should not place near metal objects. Since both of my units were in garages and near cars/metal door frames, etc. mounting the units up high on the walls as far away as possible from metal corrected that issue. MAKE SURE YOUR COLLARS ARE CHARGED! They will emit a beep when they need to be charged and it confuses your poor dog if they are in the yard when it beeps or if they hear the beep while they are in the house. I turn the collars off now when not in use (whenever they are in the house) and make sure they are charged as often as possible. My next door neighbor has the other unit with the battery operated collars and constantly complains that the batteries do not last long at all, so the fact that these collars are rechargeable was another plus for me. We shall see how long they last. This product gets a five star rating from me. It has only been a few weeks since I received it but I am already very pleased with the peace of mind it has given me, ease of use and how quickly my dogs adapted to it.

I have four Shih Tzu. Two were trained to stay on my property, but my two young males would bolt through the neighbourhood at the first chance. We bought the pet safe stay wireless pet fence and I was so surprised at how effective this product was. As the dogs approach the area of the boundary there’s a gentle beep. The beep continues more loudly, if the dogs do not respond. If they cross the area, they get a slight jolt. It didn’t take my two fellows long to learn that at one beep, they should turn around and came back. After one session they don’t wander off the property. I love this product. I highly recommend it. It saved me thousands and thousands of dollars because we were considering installing an electric fence but this works great.

I have a 16 lb King Charles spaniel. He was fully trained on this in a week. I was afraid to use this kind of a system because I was afraid it would hurt him but really wanted him to be able to run free in the yard. Started at level 1 setting on the collar, but he didn’t notice or respond until level 5. He ended up testing the boundaries a few times but quickly learned them and so far hasn’t tried to cross them again - even for a ball, butterfly or lightning bug. Love to see him running free and to be able to play fetch in the yard. Extremely happy with this system.

This wireless fence has been a lifesaver for my husky. There was no way he could be left outside before, and now he's out all day and we don't have to worry. Just a couple minor complaints: - Near the beginning of use, it seemed as if the boundaries fluctuated frequently. He would go near the outskirts and get shocked, even though he hadn't the day before. Over time it seemed to be more consistent, which is strange, so I'm not sure what it was about. - I purchased the unit on August 28, 2013 and I've already had to replace the receiver collar. It started losing it's charge daily near the end of December, and now even when charged it doesn't shock. That's just 16 months of use before the collar stopped working, and I'm kind of disappointed about that considering how much the unit and extra receivers are.

Didn’t work would not pick up collar consistently and would allow to go past limits not sure what was wrong as this was our second one so I returned it . Return was refunded so maybe I just got unlucky but for the price it should work

Works great