We live in a neighborhood where almost every house has a dog or dogs. I do not have a wireless or invisible fence, but many of our neighbors do. I know that the invisible or wireless fences don't always work, because if a dog wants to chase a squirrel, cat, chipmunk or rabbit bad enough, that dog will take the shock through the barrier and once out of the wired area, the dog is out and down the block. Our one neighbor has 2 dogs with the underground wire and one dog always breaks the barrier while the other dog has never gone beyond the wire. The problem with invisible or wireless fences is that you never know if your dog will stay in the barrier or break out and keep going until you've spent the money to find out.
Our backyard is fenced for the dog and the front is not. I wanted this Havahart Wireless Fence for two reasons, to give the dog some play space in the unfenced front yard with me and to be able to go anywhere and keep the dog in a confined area. When I say to be able to go anywhere, I mean if we go camping, on picnics, visiting friends or leaving the dog with a relative. The beauty of a Wireless Fence, is NO wiremeaning you can take the controller, collar and your dog anywhere. The portability concept is wonderfulIF it works.
The set up of this Havahart Wireless Fence is unbelievably easy. You charge the batteriesthey give you 2, but only one is in the collar. It's great to have the extra battery to quickly replace the one in the collar when it needs recharging. You set up the radius you want to contain your dog's space in, on the controller. You then place the controller on an outside wall in your home. Then measure the outside space and flag the perimeterour front is 52 feet by 50 feetyou must measure in a circleso we flagged 50 feet. The collar has an antenna wire inside the neckband, which tells you how many feet your dog is from the controller, whenever you want to checkwe found this to be a very helpful added feature.
We purchased another collar, as Havahart stated that 2 collars will work inside the perimeter of one controller, and decided to see if this works on 2 dogsmy neighbor's dog and ours. We are talking about a border collie and german shepherdboth highly intelligent dogs that love to learn new things and new games. The actual shock the dog gets from this Havahart Wireless collar, we tested against our neighbor's invisible fence collar. My neighbor's husband was the guinea pig. The invisible fence collar is an actual mild electric shock that gets stronger. This Havahart collar has one tonewith 5 correction levels. He said it was more of a buzzing, then became a sort of electric buzzing, then what he would call the shock, was about 20 times milder than the invisible fence shock. Our neighbor said this was too mild to work, but I was actually happy that the shock was mild.
Now comes the training and this is where I found out if this works for both dogs. A couple times each day, my neighbor and I just introduced the flagged area to the dogs with the collars set to tone only. We taught them to recognize the flags and the collar tone mean stop. This took 5 days. We then set the collars to low static correctiona kind of buzzing pulse that tells the dogs they are outside the flagged area. In the second week, we had to teach them to ignore all the wonderful things outside the flagged area and to stay inside when the collars buzzed. When you remove the flags (If you choose towe found out some dogs need the visual and collar both) and have the dog focus on just the collar buzzing, this is where you need to spend some time with your dog, as it was a slower learning process with the border collie because she has a natural tendency to chase and round up everything that moves. The german shepherd was an easier train than the female border collie with her naturally free spirit. After 2 weeks, the german shepherd would move back with a low level buzzing type shock, but the border collie couldn't resist chasing a squirrel. We will spend more time on the border collie, but she is such a free spirit, I don't know how long it will take or if it will work at all.
As for our german shepherd, he was trained immediately and we took the controller to my brother's home, where we set it up with a 65 foot perimeter and he stayed inside that perimeter for the entire afternoon. The mildest buzzing stops him, so I found out it's all about the dog, training the dog and not about shocking the dog. This is a wonderful wireless fence and the best part is, that if your dog is easily trained, you can take the controller anywhere and contain your dog with nothing but a buzzing collar.
We have been having some trouble with our beagle, Polly. None of us knew that beagles could climb trees and fences when they wanted to see what was on the other side of the fence. But she can. And she does. So far the bailout fees have been about $500. Our real concern, though, is that on the other side of the woods behind our backyard is a county highway. The speed limit is 50 but it's a dangerous world for puppies and other small animals.
Anyway, you can let Polly out in the back yard and then in a few minutes see her running in circles in the front yard. You can actually be standing next to her, thinking you are watching her, and she will turn up on the other side of the fence. It's like the fence is invisible to her. We have repaired and re-repaired and blocked access to trees and yet the dog is smarter than the fence. She can go under or go over. Either is just like walking for her.
The Havahart Wireless 5134G2 Radial-Shape 2 Wireless Fence could not have been easier to set up. I charged the batteries the night before and was planning on spending hours figuring out complicated formulas but none of that has been necessary. The unit should be placed on an outside wall. On the setup menu, it asks you what number you want the radius to be. Then the collar needs to be fit pretty snugly so that the points are connected to the dog's skin. The included collar is already connected. I didn't bother with the flags because Polly eats everything.
The other handy part of this is it lets you know with a beep when your dog is at the perimeter. Polly was willing to be shocked for awhile on her first visit to the perimeter and she was willing to keep being shocked while she tried to chew off the collar. Fortunately, the beep called us before she went too far with it.
I was a little freaked when I initially checked the setup of the collar and it said it was 10 feet. What it was really telling me was that the collar on the dog was ten feet away from the unit. That's a pretty sweet way to locate the little monster.
Personally I was against having a dog shocked but then it turned out I was more against having a dog run out onto the highway and this is the perfect solution. No wires to bury. No eight foot tall fences to build.
And now that she knows what I am capable of, Polly appears to be a much better behaved dog. I know she's faking it but that's good enough for me.
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The following is a timeline detailing our experience with the Havahart Wireless Fence:
Day One: Set up instructions and video review. The video that comes with the Fence provides a pretty good overview of how to set up the fence. We popped the batteries in and set the perimeter so our pup could walk around the front yard but not reach the sidewalk. We did have some issues with interference at the side of the house but set the flag where the beep was most consistent. We began training with the pup on lead and doing the whole "bad flag" mean voice thing. The pup pretty much ignored us.
Day Two: We popped the collar on once again. (Note: be sure to measure your dog's neck before you buy this, our whippet was on the cusp of not being able to wear the collar.) We went out three times a day and shook the flag and told our pup how bad it was. He could have cared less, but not much.
Day Three: We could not get the collar to work and figured out that we needed to change out and charge the batteries duh. No problems after that except the pup was completely apathetic to those wretched flags. The family was highly skeptical that this was going to work at all.
Days Four through Seven: We introduced the static tone to our training. The pup began to get the idea that the flags were somehow related to the tone and he would wander away from the flags when the tone sounded. Hope abounds!
Day Seven: We add the shock and I drop out of active training. (What can I say, I am a tenderhearted wimp.) I watch from the window as the first "shock" is not felt. The hubby told me that the lowest level was way too low for our pup to bother with. Okay, so they turn it up a couple of levels and bingo, the pup hears the sound, gets the jolt and bolts back into the center of the yard.
Days Seven through Fourteen: The pup totally gets that the sound is related to the shock but we really aren't sure he gets the concept of the flags. But it is time for us to see if this fence will suit our purposes. . .
The sole reason we were interested in this fence is because we take an annual trip to visit family who live in a lake community. They have a large unfenced yard on the lake and any number of dogs wander in and out. Last year we either had to have the pup chained or we had to keep an eagle eye on him in case he bolted off. He is a whippet and thus a sight hound. Sight hounds are notorious for being single minded when they see something to chase and we have been told time and again not to ever trust their recall because their prey drive is so strong. So we really need this fence to work. Well, it does! We set it up with minimal fuss. The pup's training was sufficient and he only needed a couple of incidents where he chased another dog outside the flags, heard the static, got a jolt, and bounded back in* for him to keep a sharp eye out for those wretched flags.
The only bad things I have to say about the system are: the flags themselves are ridiculously flimsy and you do get "dead zones" where objects interfere with the signal. But I have to say, overall I was extremely pleased with the fence and look forward to using it by the lake** on future visits.
Highly Recommended
*One of the best things about this system is the fact that the dog does not get shocked again when he comes back inside the safe zone.
**Please note, we only used this wireless system with the pup being under constant supervision and in a lightly trafficked area. I would never recommend it for sight hounds under any other circumstance.
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I train my year old Labrador with a wireless collar by Tri Tronics and she responds well even on the low and medium settings but she goes right through this fence when it is set on the highest setting. I tested it with their "heart" tester and it was working. When I called customer support to see if I was doing something wrong they said to shave my dog's neck! Also you have to change the rechargeable batteries every day. I liked the extra range it offered so that wouldn't be too big a deal for me if it worked. But what is most upsetting is not the collar but the company.
They only have 5 star reviews on their website. That's always suspicious. I posted a generous two star review for the product and simply said that it was to weak for my dog. I asked customer support if they screened their reviews and they assured me every review gets posted. They still haven't posted my review even though I received an email confirming it would be. Three more 5 star reviews have been posted since then. The company is not honest so I wouldn't trust anything they make or promote. Don't believe the reviews on their site.
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The collar worked wonderfully for the first 3 weeks then started draining the batteries faster and faster until they would only last about 5 minutes. I called Havahart and was told you can't use the collar if you have any trees, or cars, or appliances, or a garage that might get in the way. This is made for an open field only. They refused a return because it was past the 30 days (by 5 days). Havahart does not stand behind their products. Do yourself a favor and stay away from this company.
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I liked the idea of this harness. The logic behind the design makes sense to me, and I like it much better than a choke collar of any sort. I was thrilled to find purple from a private seller on Amazon as it is not readily available. My dog is right in between a small and a medium with a 19" girth, so the small size I ordered is pretty much adjusted as big as it goes.
