PetSafe Stay and Play Wireless Dog Fence: Our Honest Review

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One of the biggest challenges for dog parents is keeping their dogs safe from the outside elements. If you have a pup who loves to escape and explore, you understand the stress of keeping them contained.

Some of the more common solutions have been to install a fence, use puppy gates, or keep dogs on a stationary lead in the yard. But what if those don’t work for your dog or your budget? That’s where a wireless dog fence comes in.

Wireless containment systems, especially the highly rated PetSafe Stay & Play Wireless Dog Fence, are becoming increasingly popular among pet parents.

We were curious about its effectiveness, so we tried it and are ready to share. In this review, we’ll look at the company behind the system, how the fence functions, what we love about it, and what to consider before purchasing.

Who is PetSafe?

PetSafe has been a trusted brand in the pet industry for over 30 years, with good reason. Their focus is on keeping pets safe, healthy, and happy wherever they are. This company helps pet parents find solutions for keeping their pets safe in various environments, providing flexibility and peace of mind.

What we like about PetSafe is its use of veterinarian-backed pet technology to develop innovative solutions to pet needs. When it comes to behavior solutions and dog containment systems, PetSafe remains at the top of the list for consideration.

Overview of the PetSafe Stay & Play Wireless Fence

Designed with flexibility and convenience, the PetSafe Stay & Play Wireless Fence for Stubborn Dogs offers a solution for containing hard-to-train dogs without the expense of building a physical fence. The system includes:

• Transmitter
• One rechargeable and waterproof receiver collar
• Short and long contact points for the receiver collar
• 50 flags to mark the boundary area
• Mounting bracket with hardware for the transmitter
• Test light tool
• Rechargeable battery
• Contact point wrench
• Setup instructions

This system creates a customizable circular boundary, with the transmitter being the circle’s center. This boundary can be set to cover up to three-quarters of an acre without digging to bury wires.

The transmitter must be placed indoors on the ground floor in a central location. It must be kept off the floor by being placed on a table, shelf, etc., or using the included mounting bracket. Place it in a dry, ventilated area at least three feet away from large metal objects to avoid interference.

Once installed, the transmitter will create a circular boundary with a radius of your choosing. The instructions in the box are easy to follow for either a one-person or a two-person setup. The receiver collar sets up the flags that mark the boundary from the transmitter by following the perimeter tones for placement. Once the flags are placed, the system setup is complete.

After set up, the pet parent follows a specific training schedule, which is provided, to get their dog acclimated to the system. For this training, you’ll need lots of patience and treats! The receiver collar is designed with several settings to aid in this training.

The lowest setting is a tone-only warning that sounds when the dog approaches the boundary. The next five settings are adjustable static correction levels. Pet parents can control the type and level of correction their dog will receive by adjusting the level directly on the transmitter.

Putting the PetSafe Stay & Play to the Test

We needed to find a solution for the front yard of our house, where our strong-willed and curious basset hound likes to escape and go on adventures. We decided to try the PetSafe Stay & Play Wireless Fence for dogs system because of its customizable coverage area and design for hard-to-train dogs.

The system is advertised as taking one to two hours to set up, and with one of us handling the setup, it took about an hour to create a semicircle boundary for the house’s front yard. The system is easy to set up, and we placed the transmitter by our house’s front window.

Once the boundary was set up, we grabbed some training treats, set the training collar to the tone-only setting, and placed it on our dog. He did not react differently to this collar being on than his regular one, so that was a good start.

We took him outside and guided him along the boundary area. The training manual instructs you to let your dog go outside the boundary to hear the correction tone and then guide them back inside so they can associate the tone with the boundary’s location. It did not take long for our dog to realize that hearing the tone meant he needed to come in closer from the boundary to stop it, and then he would receive a treat when the tone stopped.

After the first round of training, we brought him inside for a rest. We did not anticipate that creating a smaller barrier in the front of the house would mean that the rest of the circumference of the barrier would be inside the home.

His bed was outside the transmitter’s perimeter, so the collar beeped like crazy when he got there. We corrected this by adjusting the transmitter’s placement to the center of the house, but it is something to consider when looking at options for transmitter placement in your home.

We followed the training schedule the following week and moved to the static correction. He did respond to it, but he didn’t like it. With consistent training, our dog could associate the boundary with the correction, and he started to avoid the boundary. The training manual guides a specific training schedule for eight days and then a supervisory period for 21 days. After the training, we felt optimistic that this system would solve our wandering Basset Hound problem!

Things We Like

• Ease of setup with this PetSafe Wireless Dog Fence
• Portability for travel or yard rotation
• Customizable boundary with the portable dog fence
• Detailed and helpful training instructions
• Long battery life for the rechargeable receiver collar
• Correction options range from sound only to strong static
• Comfort of the collar
• Additional collars for the system can be purchased separately for more dogs
• Video tutorial available on PetSafe’s YouTube channel

Things to Consider

• Large transmitter with limited placement options
• Does not stop other animals from entering the perimeter
• Requires dedicated training time for effectiveness with this invisible fence for dogs
• The entire circumference of your set boundary (to avoid being in the home)
• The collar should not be worn for more than 12 hours a day
• Steep terrain could cause boundary issues

PetSafe Stay & Play: Our Verdict

This system is worth considering at a fraction of the cost of a physical fence for pet parents willing to put in the time and effort to follow the training schedule.

Since it is easily portable, we like the potential for using it when traveling for added peace of mind. Overall, the PetSafe Stay & Play Wireless Fence system was safe and effective with the required training. We recommend it for pet parents seeking a containment solution for their stubborn and adventurous dogs.