Customer Reviews

PetSafe Deluxe In-Ground Fence, PRF-304W

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

We have 3 acres and the fence works great so far. I have learned a couple of things that I want to share. First, the installation manual says you can only twist the wire (to cancel the signal when getting from the boundary to the house) a total of 50 feet. Since my boundary is 160 feet from the house, this was a real problem. After 3 calls to PetSafe, it appears that exceeding the 50 foot limit will cause 'hot spots' or 'inconsistency' along the twisted section. My solution, which I verified with PetSafe, is to run the wire in metal conduit from the boundary to the house. This worked great, I didn't have to twist the wire, and it also kept the silly dog from digging up the wire near the house, it's protected in the conduit. I used 1/2 metal conduit, ~$2.80 for a 10 ft section. Don't worry about buying the metal connectors (they cost nearly as much as the sections), just use cheap PVC or anything to keep the sections lined up as you lay them in (do be careful not to knick the wires).

So far, the collar appears to be waterproof, the dog hops in the pool several time a day.

As for training, I recommend following the PetSafe guide closely those first two weeks. My dog has been shocked a total of 5 times over 3 or 4 days and wants no part of the flags, even though his favorite digging spot was in the (now protected) flower bed. He's been within the fence for about a month now.

My dog is ~60 lbs, about 9 months old, and is a very active lab/boxer mix that loves to run.

There is much peace of mind now, the dog doesn't get yelled at for leaving the yard, and we are happy campers. Now, if I can just keep him from shredding aluminum cans and digging holes in the yard....

**UPDATE after almost 2 years (May 2010)**
Lightning zonked the base station, but PetSafe replaced it for $35, which I found reasonable. The dog hits the pool about 20 times a day and I was getting a little moisture in the collar. I bought a little tub of 'pool grease' at the pool supply store and when I change the battery I just smear some on the threads and o-ring. The dog is now 70 lbs and 2.5 years old and greatly respects the fence, even if his nemesis 'the squirrel' taunts him on the other side. With the metal conduit approach mentioned above, I plan to now easily extend another loop around a different flowerbed.

We were expecting some issues based on the reviews, but actually now that ours is installed and the dog is trained, we have to say we're happy-it installed on the first try and works as advertised.
The video CD instructions included installation and training beyond the detail the written manual. Both are adequate.
The only negative surprise is once we read the instructions it indicated the unit should be grounded to guard against lightening strikes- so they recommend connecting a wire to the house ground rod or burying a new one 3 feet deep. Not a big deal if you locate the unit near your house grounding rod. They also recommend locating the transmitter 3 feet from any large metal objects in your garage- ie. the metal garage door, washer, hot water tanks, or electrical breaker box. (We did 2 feet and it seems to work fine)
We rented an edger to bury 1700 feet of wire around 2 acres (3 extra wire kits were purchased), and used a paint stick stirrer to push the wire in about 3". The edger worked pretty well, assuming I ran it twice over the cut to get the full depth. This process took a full day.
The unit has an adjustable range knob - it changes the distance to when the collar picks up this signal from the wire.
Our 7 month lab was fairly easy to train- starting at the low setting (of 5 levels, the lowest being beep only) on the collar and working up until he noticed it. Took about 2 weeks, and he respects the boundary, but without fear or emotional scars (best we can tell!)
One pleasant surprise: The collar will beep first as the dog nears the fence, and if he gets closer, then it zaps him. This was not clear to us from the instructions or the box.
Overall very happy with this unit.

The fence transmitter and receiver collar work just as well as the expensive ones that the pet containment companies would like to sell you. But watch out for the light guage antenna wire that comes with this kit. I've had 3 problems with the wire:
- Stapling the twisted pairs to the side of my house - the flat staples cut right through the insulation and shorted the antenna loop. Took a while to track that down.
- Easy to break. Above ground stretches of the wire (along a fence) have broken twice.
- Apparent high impedance - the transmitter chirps intermittently because it thinks there's a break in the wire when there isn't. I suspect this is just the impedance from 1000 feet of tiny wire.

I plan to buy a roll of heavier wire at the hardware store and replace the antenna entirely.

Follow Up (Dec 2009): I found 14 ga solid core copper wire at the local home center for a reasonable price, and used it to replace the wire that came with kit. That seemed to fix the problem. I later had to buy a new transmitter after a lightning strike fried the original, but I know from experience that the this happens to the expensive dog fences just as often.

I started with the PETSafe PIF-300 wireless fence, but to maximize the yard space for Miles, my 85lb chocolate lab, I was half in both neighbors yards, so the traditional in-ground fence made more sense as I could choose the extreme boundaries on all sides of the yard.

I bought a second hand 1/2 hp edger to dig the trench which did a great job. Laid out the boundary line and used a paint stick to tuck in in the trench. My two boys helped cover the trench by doing a congo-line along the rift twisting their feet as they walked. Lots of fun. Ran a line from the side yard nearest the garage and used a power drill to twist the wire. Plugged them into the unit and it was good to go. Very easy installation, but requires a little patience to tuck 500 feet of wire into a trench.

We set the collar on beep only first, walked Miles around the perimeter marked with flags, and gave him a treat each time he came back into the safe zone. Did this many many times. Then increased the static correction level on it's lowest setting. He seemed completely unaffected by it. I tried it on my leg. Not much to write home about, but I'm sure works for a smaller dog. So, I increased the level to 3 (flashes). Better, but we finally settled on 4 before Miles even had a reaction to it. This is good because no matter what size your dog is, you can adjust this to your needs. Again, I tried it through my jeans on my leg. It was enough to get my attention, but was not inhumane or painful. Within a couple of hours, Miles had figured out the flags and beeps went together and he stayed in the yard.

Over the next couple of days, Miles only got outside the boundary twice. We figured out the collar was too loose and wasn't making contact. A little slack taken up, and he's not even tried to get out since. Miles loves the new arrangement. At the old house he had the backyard to himself with a chain-link fence. He paced paths, barked at everyone walking the neighborhood, and seemed anxious. With the in-ground fence going from the front curb to the boundary of the backyard, he has total access to everything which he loves. He just lays in the front yard during the day and watches people, cars, and dogs walk by without a bark. I guess the distance between the front and back with the chain-link was just too much for him, but now he's really happy.

I would highly recommend this product and intend to install new wire should we move again and take the unit with us. Money very well spent. Note: If you don't have close neighbors, the wireless option is very cool, just keep in mind the shape of your yard and how large a diameter circle you want to work with. Wired is great in that you can exclude flower beds or other areas of your yard like a garden that you might not want the dog getting into.

I have had to reconnect breaks in the loop six times. I followed the installations to a tee, yet every week the loop breaks and I have to find and repair the breaks in the wire. First break I dug the whole fence up to finally find and repair the break. It took about 4 hours to find, repair, and re-bury the fence. On the second break I went out and bought a Wire Break Locater Kit for $50, which worked pretty well. Since then I have had four more breaks I have had to repair. There is quite a bit of maintenance involved in this fence.

So overall the fence works well when it is working but I would highly recommend the Wire Break Locater. Also you need to be willing to repair the fence frequently.

I bought this in-ground fence as an affordable alternative to putting a privacy fence completely around my property or paying for professional installation of an invisible fence.

After a lot of research about different options I realized that Petsafe and the Invisible Fence brand are basically the same company, offering the same products under different names. A call to the local Invisible Fence Company came with an estimate of well over $1,000 to "fence in" my yard which is about 1/3 of an acre with two collars.

The DIY installation was easy once we decided to borrow a friend's gas powered edger. It was miserable trying to make a small trench with a straight blade shovel. With the edger we installed approx 400' or so of the fence in about 2-3 hours.


So far the fence has been in the ground for two months and I am more than pleased with how well it works. We have two dogs a 1 year old hyper active Saint Bernard and a 10 year old very stubborn extra large mixed breed and they both easily learned where the boundary is and to respect it. During the initial training we had one incident with the dogs crossing the boundary to play with some dogs in the yard that had gotten away from their owner on a walk. After that incident I turned up the correction level to a higher setting and have been escape free ever since. I simply cannot express how much piece of mind this product has given us. Now I feel confident that I can allow our dogs out in the yard for extended periods of time without constant supervision.


I would highly recommend this product to any person who are considering purchasing this fence for their pets.

Great product, installation was easy and it worked perfectly. Our 4mo lab learned his limits in about 1hr. Additional wire is cheap (buy 14-16ga stranded wire if you need more), the included 500ft are likely not to be enough.
The only 2 negative parts are the too sensitive range control (level 6 makes the boundary too narrow, level 7 makes it too wide) and the lack of a battery backup in case of a power outage (honestly the dog doesn't even get tempted to pass the boundary even if he's not wearing the collar, but still...).
Overall a great product, highly recommended. If you want a battery backup you can also buy a computer UPS, it will last for 1-2 hrs, or you can MacGyver something using a 12V UPS battery, a diode and a resistor :)

It works if you set it up right and make sure the collar is on right!! I just want to share some facts or give info the description doesn't have.

1. Watch the video on Amazon on the product description page before buying it!! When I got mine, I didn't have to read the direction. The video on Amazon shows you how to do it and it is that EASY!!

2. The meter box has to be in a dry place inside a building!! I was really worried because were I need to put the fence was no where near my garage (where most people put it and feed the wire under the door) I plugged it in behind my couch and ran the wire through the window. Yes the wire is thin enough to feed through a closed & locked window (and I have new windows that are very tight)

3. I saw some people post the collar gets wet & doesn't work, well my dogs been out in the rain and in the pool ours still works. It might not be because it got wet, but you have to replace the battier in the collar, also to adjust how much you want to shock the dog on the collar it has a screw on cap if you don't put it back on might lead to your water problems.

4. Also someone put it didn't work on their dog, I made the same mistake, after I set it up the dog walk right over the line didn't work on her. I had 2 problems I need to turn the shock level up and I didn't have her collar on tight enough. You have to put it on tight so they can feel the prongs to get shock.

5. I held the collar in my hand to see what it's like (call me crazy but I want to make sure my dog wasn't being hurt) on level 2 all you feel is a slight tingle feeling hardly even noticeable I can't see how that would work on any dog. Level 3 was a little zap, like when you drag your feet in the winter and shock someone not painful at all. Level 4 was a zap, it only last a second and it made me drop the collar but it wasn't painful mostly scared me. Still it was enough for me, I didn't try level 5 someone else will have to do that, I put my dog's collar on level 3 and works to keep her out of my flowers and from chewing the pool pump up.

I replaced an existing system with this unit, and I am pleased to report it works just fine. In my case, the wiring was already in the ground, so it was simple. A couple notes for people considering this system:

-- The wiring that came with it (which I did not use because I already had a wired installation) is not labeled as to what guage it is--looks like 20 guage to me. In general, the lower the gauge, the thicker and more durable the wire installation will be. When I pulled up a 20-gauge system system last year, the wire broke in several places while pulling it up. It is best to go 18 or 16 guage solid copper, which you can find on the internet.) I wish I could have bought this without the wire, but it was cheaper to buy the whole system and toss the wire.

--The success or failure of an underground dog system depends not so much on the product, but on the time invested in doing the training even before you turn the system on. Remember, that an underground dog "fence" is not really a fence at all, but only an aid for training your dog to stay in the yard. A lot of compaints you hear about "it just doesn't work for my dog" really means they didn't do all the training or didn't understand the basic premise that this is a training aid, not a "fence" that you just put in and it does the job of a physical fence.

I have had two models of the Petsafe Pet Fences over the last 5-7 years and while they work OK when they work, at this point they have proven themselves a consistent hazard. The first unit I had would not maintain a loop. It either beeped incessantly because I had the sensitivity too low or it shocked my dogs no matter where they went on the back 1 acre of the fenced area. I tolerated this, however. The batteries in the first collars were a joke. You had to buy them from Petsafe even though the batteries were just common batteries. Of course they charged 5 times more for their proprietary battery units... I got around that by prying their battery module apart and just inserting the exact same type of battery as were in there. Easy, but ridiculous. They have since started selling collars that just use the batteries without their proprietary packaging so that was good. This second fence that I purchased in February, for which I am leaving this review, DID perform much better than the first model I had, so in that I want to be clear and fair.

To the important points - the first fence that I purchased some years ago smoked/flamed about 6 months ago - literally smoked and/or caught on fire. I am fairly sure that it flamed at least a little because when I took it apart, there was sign that flame had been present, not just smoke. The unit was several years old at that point so I thought it might be just a glitch. I ordered another one - the model for which I am leaving this review. The fence arrived and was DOA. It did not loop. I contacted Petsafe and they promptly replaced the unit. Their customer service was very helpful and better than average - they did not give me any runaround (but I was very clear with what I had done to test the unit and didn't leave a lot of room for the usual finger pointing I typically expect from customer service). Within a couple of days of filing the RMA, I had a new (or refurbished) unit. I connected that up in my garage two or three months ago. A few days ago I was told by my wife that the dogs were getting out. I checked on the fence and the lights appeared to indicate that it was working correctly and had loop. It was not beeping like they usually do when there is a break in the wire. But then when testing it, I found that the light appeared as if it was working even if there were no wires connected to it. I took it off the wall where it was mounted and turned it around to find - SMOKE signs. Very clear smoke signs. Then I looked on the wall where it was mounted and there was slight smoke sign on that, as well. VERY DISTURBING. I took the back off of the unit and, sure enough, there were components inside that were totally burnt, there were black smoke signs all over the inside and part of the board was burnt completely. The fuse that is in the unit was not blown and none of the other devices on the same circuit as the fence exhibited any sign of damage -nor was this the case on the first pet fence that did the same thing. There are other delicate electronics on that circuit that, had it been a surge or something, would also have been burnt out. I have contacted Petsafe again about this and will see what they say about this, but honestly, I don't think I could ever feel "SAFE" using another one of their products given my experience and near catastrophes with them. I give this product two stars only because it worked while it worked, but I definitely think people should be made aware of my experiences given what COULD HAVE happened to me and COULD INDEED HAPPEN to someone else. Very scary....

I give reviews only when I feel strongly one way or another about a product that I have purchased. When negatively reviewing anything, I always allow that my experiences may not be everyone's but I have NEVER run across something like this that posed a consistent danger over a range of products by the same manufacturer over a number of product lines and YEARS apart. Though I was very impressed by their customer service when I contacted them about the first DOA product, I feel that goes right out the window when their products came very close to burning my garage down - TWICE! I will be looking for another pet fence manufacturer and will see what Petsafe says about this.