PetSafe Premium In-Ground Cat Fence

We have two 8 y/o cats who have roamed free since they were young. But after several near-misses with cars, all-night stop-outs, and expensive vet bills from altercations with other cats, I reluctantly decided the fence was the only option. We were the laughing stock of the street and even the vetinary office who vowed it would never work, BUT IT DOES. The biggest issue was with training the manual advises a leash or a tie-out so that if the cat jumps when "corrected", he stays on the right side of the fence. But most non-Siamese cats will not walk on a leash, and we found they wouldn't walk on a tie-out either. Eventually we put the collars on them and supervised them extremely closely, retrieving them from the other side of the fence every so often. Occasionally after an escape we had to turn the system off to allow them back in without being corrected. It took about three weeks of 2-3 hours a day and was admitedly intensive from both a time and emotional standpoint I hated putting my cats through it and they got very down about it in the heat of the training. But gradually we began leaving them unsupervised for longer and longer, and now they remain within the boundaries of the property, even after dark. It is such a relief to be able to let them out and not worry about where they are. If you don't have the time or the patience for constant supervision during training, an alternative option is to first purchase an indoor system, such as the PetSafe Pawz Away Instant Pet Barrier. The cat learns how the system works by himself in the safety of your home, and will generalize that learning to the outdoor fence, dramatically reducing supervision time. Yes, the fence and the collars are initially expensive but the peace of mind is well worth it.

Update a year later: Although we were thrilled with the effectiveness of the fence for the first year, the more feral of our two cats became extremely depressed the following summer, lying around listless and not wanting to go outside. If we carried him outside, chipmunks would run right in front of his nose and he wouldn't give chase, even though he had been a master hunter. Since he had always been the more reliable of the two cats, we ultimately decided to take him off the system and allow him to roam free again. The depression has cleared up and he is back to his old self, although we miss the peace of mind! Meanwhile, our other cat (with many more years of domestication in his ancestry) remains contained and we've seen no changes in his personality or demeanor.

We've had our fence about 5 months now. When it first arrived and I read the instruction manual I was like-----what??!!! I didn't receive the impression from the description of the product that I had to "train my cat" for three to four weeks in order to use this product--hence four stars rather than five. I didn't bother with their recommended training--this is how the story goes......

Cat was not quite six months old--as product recommends, but close enough. We live in the country surrounded by woods and have a fenced in front yard with a cat door to allow the cat to come and go as she pleases. However, we wanted her to stay in the fenced in yard as foxes are frequently spotted in the trees surrounding us. Originally she began escaping the yard by squeezing through gaps, rather than climbing the fence. Therefore, we strung the boundary wire about six inches below the TOP of the fence everywhere except the spots she had been squeezing through.

On the spots where the cat had been squeezing through we strung the boundary wire along the fence just six inches above the ground. Doing that allowed the cat to go right up to the fence everywhere except the spots she had been escaping. Those spots where the wire was close to the ground she could not walk up to anymore without the warning sound going off followed by the mild shock. This worked well for a few weeks but then she figured out a way around it.

She got out three times before I saw how she was doing it. I then did two things--first I adjusted the boundary wire to stop her from getting out that way--then I "took away the warning" that allowed her to "test the boundaries." Cats are smart--and that warning beep allows stubborn cats to figure out how to get out. I made it so that the warning and the beep were so close together the cat didn't have a chance to back off before getting zapped. Once she stopped receiving a "warning" she decided it wasn't worth the zap and stopped trying to get out.

Oh, regarding the batteries that Petsafe wants ten bucks for: When the battery got low and needed replacing I disconnected the battery from the permanent casing holding it and simply bought a regular CR1/3 battery for three bucks. And just in case doing this made the collar less waterproof I simply take the collar off the cat when rain is forecasted. (for instructions on how to disconnect the battery just do an amazon product search for petsafe batteries.)

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I bought the In-Ground cat fence for my cat and an extra dog receiver collar for my dog. The system works great. My only caution it that the cat collar has a 1/3 range of the dog collar (I called Petsafe today to see if my collar was defective or if that was how it really does work.) So I had to switch my cat collar to my dog and the dog collar to the cat. The cat would just run though or jump over the 1 foot boundary with the cat collar. While the dog collar has something more like 8 feet of boundary. I would have been better off buying the regular dog fence system and an extra dog collar instead of getting the cat system. Would have spent less money and then at least their boundaries would have been the same. And the lady I talked to said that the small dog collar works the same as the cat collar, at about a 1/3 of the range of the other collars.

I hope this helps someone else before they purchase the system.

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I bought this fence after we spent a whole weekend and over $1000 putting in a chain link fence to keep my daughters cat safely in our yard when not so much as a week went by she was climbing the fence even after being declawed. So I ordered this fence and got it the next day, then I decided to return it unopened because after reading how you must train your cat I thought uggh this will never work. Then after I printed my return label I thought what the heck, if it zaps her as she comes close to the fence she will never go ahead and climb it, so the next day bright and early I ran the cable along the new chain link fence, hooked it all up and put on the collar, thats it. At first she acted like it weighed a ton and her head drooped to the ground, after about 15 minutes she was fine, and she is a small built cat, We went on out to the yard and within 15 minutes she approached the fence and what do you know, it must have zapped her ( on the level 2) because she jumped up in the air and ran to the deck. After this she made a few more trips to the fence but it gets her every time and she has not once gotten out. If this changes in the future I will do a new review but so far if you have an existing fence, this is a great and easy way to stop your cat from climbing it.

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First: great idea, we use it to keep one of our cats OUT of the main living area in the house (he has issues ...), so he is outside with his collar and we installed the "zapper" at the second cat-door.

Training:

We could NOT train him, because he simply refused to walk on the leash, he just threw himself to the ground and was miserable (typical for cats). So, finally, after 4 weeks, we decided just to let him run with his collar and the zapper on (lowest zap!), and, he never came through the second cat door, but is a happy cat outside and in some rooms of the house ... we would never have been able to train him if we had installed it as a containing fence, he would never ever have walked on the leash. Our other cats when we tried it did the same: miserable huddles on the ground, no way they could be trained.

the collar:

our cat accepted the collar better than expected, just now and then he scratches his neck a bit where the collar is. And, after only about 10 days I can already see that the collar is starting to get lots of lose ends ... looks shaggy .. it is definitely not made for an animal that may now and then scratch his neck and hit the collar with his claws ... poor poor quality

so, overall, the system helped us to solve our problem, but I have to figure out something about the collar.

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