PetSafe Pawz Away Indoor Wireless Pet Barrier, Electric Training System for Dogs & Cats with Receiver Collar

TL;DR: It works. Make sure the collar is tight enough to get proper skin contact and the barrier is set to a good distance. The shock feels at worst like a tiny rubber band lightly snapping the skin, and at the lightest like a finger giving you a tap. UPDATE TL;DR: About 6 months later, it's a great product when you take the time to work with it. It was my last ditch effort to save my cat from being rehomed after over two years of trying hormone diffusers, sprays, collars, extra food dishes, extra litter boxes, and it's the only thing that's ultimately been successful in protecting the furniture. The details: I'd about given up trying to keep my male cat off our kid's bed and a giant lounging pillow that he can't seem to help spraying on despite being fixed. I decided to set up the barrier in the doorway of the room with said furniture to just keep him out of it entirely while still allowing our other two cats who don't pee on anything to come in as they pleased. At first, I tried the collar on myself. As others have said, it's no worse than being snapped by a small rubber band at the strongest setting, and that's proven to be plenty for our guy (He's 2, not super fluffy or thick-coated). I did at first think it didn't work at all. I watched him literally walk over the barrier on max distance while it beeped at him incessantly (the beeping is pretty quiet) but he ignored it entirely. I looked at the directions in the kit for troubleshooting why it wasn't working, and one of the primary things was "make sure it's tight enough/getting proper skin contact." So I tightened the collar a bit, making sure it was more snug, still thinking it wasn't going to help, and waited to see if he'd cross the barrier into the room he's been banned from. Eventually, I heard the beeping once more and watched him attempt to walk past the disc. He suddenly stopped, jumping back and running away from the door. Success! I gave him treats and love for returning to the space he needs to stay in. He attempted it a second time that day with the same result, and now, the beep is enough to deter him from even trying. I love him very much, and as a result, I've spent so much money and time trying hormone sprays, collars, diffusers of all different brands to try and stop this happening without success. Waterproof cat blankets on things helped, but we needed a way to stop him entirely, as the blankets only provide so much protection, and I didn't want him to think he could keep spraying on things when we moved into our new house. I also hated keeping every door closed, as it restricts the other two well-behaved cats from being able to roam the space as they please, and three cats confined to one area because all the doors have to constantly be closed really sucks, and probably doesn't make the issue for him any better. I will definitely be buying more barriers to keep him out of bedrooms and any other rooms I don't want him peeing in. I will also give putting it on top of furniture a try to allow him to come into some rooms, but stay off the furniture. It's been a week since I got this, and I'm so relieved to see that it works. My furniture is finally safe, my other two cats can have the run of the whole place again, and the best part is that now I don't have to consider rehoming him, as this was literally the last thing to try before deciding that he needed to find a new home. I haven't seen how long the batteries last, but others in the question section reported roughly 3 months depending on how often your critter tests the barrier, so I'll keep an eye out for that when the time comes. UPDATE: It's been about half a year now, the system is still working great. I purchased two additional barriers to refine the space my cat can access so I can block objects he pees on rather than entire rooms being blocked off for him. It's worked insanely well. I routinely replace all of the batteries every 3-5 months to ensure they stay on. I now have a barrier that lives on the couch when we're not sitting on it, one to block him from the lounging pillow, and one for our son's bed. The bed was miraculous in how well it works; I put it underneath, close to the center, set it on level 4, and it's strong enough to go through the bed, frame and all, and trigger the collar when he gets on top of it. He can now come in the room and hang out again, just can't get up on the furniture he pees on. These really work well when you take the time to adjust them and find out how best to set them up for your situation. One thing I will say is make sure you're frequently checking (and you should always be checking pet equipment anyways), as after 3 months, one of the barriers had shut off and just wouldn't turn on anymore. Thanks to the training it gave my cat, however, nothing bad happened. He learned not to get on the couch, and he stays off even without the barrier. Customer service is amazing, too. All I needed was a screenshot of my Amazon order info, and I followed the support link Amazon provided, chatted with a PetSafe representative, and they immediately sent out a new device under the 1-year warranty.

Update: I had the device set at its highest (12 foot) setting and placed in a 2.5 foot doorway at the end of a long, narrow hall. After 2 successful weeks, my cat walked right past this device, went through the dog door, and got torn up my another cat. This unreliable POS cost me an ER visit, a huge vet bill, and almost cost my cat an eye! At the vet, I was further horrified to find that the heavy collar had rubbed the hair off my cat's neck, and it was starting to weep and bleed at the top. The collar had been removed every evening, except for the roughly 24 hours he snuck out, and was tight enough to zap him a few times when I watched him "test it" earlier in the week. The batteries are still good, so either my cat ignored the zap long enough to stroll 12 feet past the transmitter, or it is NOT functioning consistently and reliably. The fact is, my cat is a 100% indoor cat and has been his whole life. When he HAS snuck out of the house in the past, he has never stayed out for more than a few minutes, and he doesn't go very far. This time, he was gone for about 24 hours, which makes me think that the collar might have actually kept him from COMING BACK INSIDE. He got past the transmitter once, then wasn't able to come back in! And he's not really the type of cat to stand outside and howl for help, he would just sulk and hide, unless he's in pain, which is why I wasn't able to find him for 24 hours, until he finally heard my voice and crawled out from underneath the house all torn up, eye swollen shut and oozing, covered head-to-tail in blood. "PetSafe" my ###. I should also add that I have experience with other electronic collars. I had never needed to use one before, until we adopted our recent pound puppy, a slightly-insane husky who streaked 1/2 a mile out of a fenced-in schoolyard AND across the four lane highway, because he thought the person calling him (ME) was one of the people standing over there. Since then, that shock collar has <literally> saved his life. That being said, this pathetic device would not work for most dogs. It is NOTHING like the device (in size, quality, or power) I trained our dog with. Maybe a small, timid dog, but I still doubt it. The collar is bulky and heavy for small animals. The shock is minimal. The beep it makes is pathetic and useless, almost inaudible, and there's no loud warning tone well in advance of a shock... which I've found to be VITAL when using these types of products. The beep should do all the work. They can get used to the shock or find a way around it, but the warning beep and anticipation of shock is worse, and ultimately what discourages them. This device might keep a timid dog out of a garbage can. Maybe. But DON'T COUNT ON IT KEEPING YOUR PET SAFE.

UPDATE: collar just randomly stopped working after 2.5 months. My dog wears it pretty much nonstop during the day, but she is not rough on it at all, the receiver still looks brand new, Still... it's annoying that a product as expensive as this wouldn't work for long. I contacted pet safe via phone (their website says they have a customer chat but I couldn't find any link to do that) they called me back within 10 minutes and the customer service rep was insanely helpful and friendly and sent me out a replacement collar no problem. I just had to have proof of my Amazon invoice and it falls under their 1 year warranty. Hoping this one works longer than the first one! WHERE HAS THIS BEEN MY WHOLE LIFE?? First, a little background: I am an experienced dog owner, I used to train dogs in college and I have owned 2 labs of my own (both very well behaved) before getting my food obsessed yellow lab who is now 7 yrs old. The last 7 years this dog has tested my patience to the max. She is a high drive, "working" lab who once ate through a Chewy box to get at her bag of food and ate 9lbs of dog food without us knowing (that was a trip to the ER vet and a story for another time). I have tried EVERYTHING to get her to stop stealing food from the counters/table, but she still thinks my kid's food is an all you can eat buffet. Finally my mom mentioned this little indoor pet barrier and after reading up on the several options out there, I went with pet safe for a couple of reasons: 1. I've had a pet safe wireless fence system for 10+ years and it still works. Hopefully this is just as durable. 2. This is battery powered with replaceable batteries so you can literally put it anywhere in your house, unlike some that need a plug. My dog is already trained to an e-collar and a wireless fence so she is very familiar with the "beep" and knows to back off. I put this collar on and turned the barrier on, and the results were IMMEDIATE. As suspected she went right for the piece of jerky I put on the table. She got the beep and then a shock and off she ran out of the kitchen. She now sits outside of the kitchen looking sad and dejected trying to convince you she is starving. We have left all kinds of food out to test her and nothing has been touched in 4 days. -Be aware that if your dog is not familiar with an e-collar they will likely need a little more training. -The level of shock can not be adjusted, it appears to be sufficient for my 60lb, VERY persistent lab, however if you have a super stubborn dog, or very sensitive dog, this may not be great for you (although I think it's worth a try!) - you will likely need to buy a couple of other bases if you have a weird shaped room/large area to cover. For instance, I want to keep my dog off the counter and the table. If the base is on the table, the 6ft radius doesn't quite make it to all of my counters, and vice versa. For now she's terrified enough of the beep that she stays out, but I may need to get another mini barrier for the table in the future. -I think the price is a bit expensive for what it is. The collar strap is cheap (I compared it to my OG pet safe fence collar and the quality is lacking). I can stomach paying $75 for the collar and barrier system, but I wish the add on barriers were less money. That being said.... if you're desperate like me, it's worth it. - this isn't really training her to not take food, which I don't love because I believe in correcting the problem in your training instead of putting a bandaid on it (I'm sure the second the collar is off she will take full advantage and go right back to stealing), so I intend to do some training with her on top of the barrier, but at least this can keep her from self rewarding when she steals food. Overall I'm so happy I came across this and as long as it continues to work without issue, it's a home run!

Before I review this product, I would like to make a comment on the packaging. It is perhaps the most difficult to open packaging that I've ever encountered, and can actually cause you harm when doing so. Like many products, this one comes encased in a hard plastic shell, the type that requires the use of a very sharp scissors or box cutter to open. The difference between this and the others, is that in addition to the hard plastic, there are 4 areas on the plastic front that are stamped/locked, so that regardless of how you open the package, you'll have the additional chore of trying to rip apart the 4 sealed/locked areas. It's absolutely mind boggling that a company would come up with such a poor design. At first, I tried using a scissors to break through the plastic. When that failed, I brought out a box cutter and cut all the way around the circumference of the transmitter. Once done with this, I struggled so much to rip apart the 4 sealed areas, that I ended up cutting my hands in several locations. I called up the company and told them that their packaging was downright dangerous to open. They explained to me that it's done this way, so that thieves won't be able to open the item and steal it from a store. In this respect, I guess they're correct. If a thief attempted to do so, he/she would become so frustrated that he/she might decide that it's just a lot easier to rob a bank. At any rate, although the packaging is absurd, I'm not deducting any points, as this is a review of the product, not how it's packed. After bandaging up my hands from opening the package, I read the easy to understand instructions for setting up the device. I should note that the reason for my purchase, was that my cat was peeing in our dining room, and I needed to find a way to keep him out of there. The round transmitter requires 3 AA batteries, while the receiver comes with a set of tiny silver ones like you'd find in a watch. The transmitter has the ability to be set for a distance of 2 feet to 12 feet in diameter. It also comes with the ability to set it for additional receivers, should you need to use the device for more than one pet. For this, you'll need to purchase an additional receiver collar. I set the transmitter up for the 12 foot diameter, and used the included tool to test its effectiveness. I found that it did cover an area that was 12 feet wide, but there were some dead spots within this range. Next, I decided to see what the static shock was like before placing the receiver on my cat. To be quite honest, it was slightly painful to me, so I can imagine what it would be like for a small animal. It's not something that I would recommend, unless you're in a situation where it's absolutely necessary to correct problem behavior. I really didn't want to use it on my cat, but I also didn't want him peeing in the dining room. The use of the device won out. My next step was to place the receiver around my cats neck. I did so, than removed it, so that I could adjust it to the proper size. I put it back on, brought him over to the "static" zone and to my surprise, nothing happened at all. I determined that the problem was that the hair around my cats neck was so thick, that the 2 prongs that are supposed to touch the skin, were only touching his hair. I brought out a scissors and tried to trim his hair, but he totally freaked out. Next, I brought out an electric haircut trimmer, and trimmed his hair down to the point where the prongs would be able to touch the skin. Again, this was not an easy task, as my cat freaked out again when he heard the sound of the trimmer. At this point, I was feeling extremely guilty and I really didn't want to use the device, but knew that I had to. I placed the receiver around his neck for the second time, than brought him back to the "static" zone. This time, it worked immediately. As soon as he entered the zone, he switched direction and ran off like a cheetah. I immediately removed the receiver from his neck and let a week go by. He did not return to the dining room, nor did he pee anywhere else in the house. A week later, I placed the receiver on his neck one more time. As a reinforcement, I brought him back to the "static" zone and he immediately ran away. Apparently my problem is solved and unless I encounter any more behavioral problems, I'll never use the product again. The bottom line is that this pet barrier works as advertised, but is not the most humane method of teaching an animal not to enter a certain area. It's listed on Amazon as being a teaching aid for dogs, however when I spoke with a representative from the company, they said it is also designed to be used on cats. My cat weighs 11 pounds, which is well within the acceptable limit for it's use. It can actually be used on pets weighing a lot less, so I can only imagine how painful the static shock would feel to them. Pros: More or less works as advertised. Easy to set up. Easy to use. Quickly teaches your pet not to enter "no pet" zones. Collar is adjustable to any size pet. Transmitter can be set for an area from 2 feet to 12 feet in diameter. Comes with a tester so that you don't accidentally shock yourself. Company representatives are very friendly. Cons: Infuriating packaging I consider shock sufficient enough to be considered inhumane. Receiver collar is uncomfortable, as prongs have to touch pets neck. Pets hair may need to be shaved for prongs to work properly. Would I purchase this again: Yes, but only if every other solution failed to work. Rating: 3.5 stars

We did not want to. Hit breaking point. Tried and it works! No more cats on counters and they no longer fear humans! Cat 1, 13yr old, extreme counter surfer and crumb hunter. Cat 2, 4yr old, loves high places. Doesn't look for food, but will eat crumbs she comes across causing diarrhea. (High places solution fixed with wall mounted cat shelves in adjacent living room!) Enter kids. Crumbs on floor. Food left on counters. Cats on counters and cat diarrhea health concern for humans. Cat 1 knows foot swipe means get out or you'll get booted. Toddler sees and now kicks animals. Spraying the cat or scolding, etc, makes human scary bad guy. Cat learns get away with naughty if human not around. Toddler learns be mean to animals. Need device to make environment scary instead and without imprinting on toddler. Motion sensor devices not feasible. Both humans and cats trigger, high traffic kitchen. Air can mechanisms the air chemicals are food health concern. Cannot use loud noise mechanisms, would wake humans. Put puck on island at max so it covers floor surrounding island including under chairs where most crumbs collect. Turn on collar, hear beeps when entering no-zone. Beep=shock, there are no warning beeps. Ensured no-zone covers where we want. (2 collars, 1 puck.) Note no-zone is a sphere. 12 foot diameter, so 6 feet any direction from puck. Not a perfect circle. Walls and items, especially metal, obstruct or hamper signal. Test shock on humans. It starts low and builds. Hurts more on different body parts, i.e. owie arm but not terrible in hand. Hurts more on humans due to lack of insulating fur. Collar prongs need skin contact. Recommend trim fur if long hair, short hair can trim but not needed. Fit snug. Cut excess collar strap. Use flame to melt strap end = no fraying! (We trimmed cat 1 but not cat 2.) Due to fur, collar may not trigger immediately. Let cat wear collar a while and it will settle. Eventually they will get shocked. Beep=shock attempt. If collar shifts it may not shock, but beep will warn them. Cat 1 constantly tests border but beeps turn her away, even staring drooling at piece of dropped chicken 1 foot away. Is chicken worth the risk? Nope! If human not around when triggered, no negative association with human. Be careful - if cat associates collar with shock, removing collar cat will be naughty again. Note our cats already wear collars, so no reaction to changing collars. If your cat does not already wear a collar, please get them used to one before shocking them. This reduces their anxiety and scratching at the collar, and helps avoid negative association with the collar. Prongs are pokey and not pleasant to wear. Shift or remove collar often, give cats love and neck scritches. Be patient, this is not an overnight fix and each cat reacts differently. Do not laugh when they get shocked - it hurts! Give them love (reinforce you are not the bad guy.) Ours is a happy ending. Cat 1 no longer slinking about and loves on us so much more. Maybe more time to love since no longer surfing? Relationship restored to our love before the kids (and crumbs) entered our lives! Cat 2 no more diarrhea! Toddler not kicking animals! But it's not over yet. Cat 1 keeps testing the border. It could take months for her to give up, or she might never give up. There needs to be a long-term solution for strong willed pets (see note to devs below about why.) For the developers: 1 star removed as this item can be improved. Since beep=shock, cats are assocating with the beep and not necessarily the no-zone. You cannot keep shock collar prongs on a pet indefinitely. These collars need a beep-only mode so once they learn beep=shock, the prongs can be removed. A beeper adapter for an existing cat collar would be neat, so you can use any fun collar, with your pet tags, and still get the beeps. The puck should also have a power adapter option. Battery-only is limiting, and wasteful when placed near outlets. Rechargeable collars is a thought, but harder to manage as the pet needs to wear the collar. We had a vibration collar for our dog and would just remove the collar at night to charge it when she was in her kennel. Can't really do this with cats, but the option would be nice for those it would work for.

I bought 3 of these things and I've used them for about 2 months so my review is pretty solid. 1. The range is half of what is advertised. About 5-6 feet maximum. 2. The plastic is very poor quality so the casing breaks easily. I can't close one of the battery doors because the plastic "hook" snapped off while being shipped to me. Also one of the collar adjustments snapped. From the breaks, its obvious that the plastic wasn't melted properly (tiny bubbles) and so a little stressed caused it to split. 3. The metal connections to the battery aren't springy enough, so once in a while I have to bend them up a bit to complete the circut. 4. The collar quality is pretty low too. I have 3 dogs, and they simply chewed through each others collars with ease. They haven't been able to do that with any other collars. 5. The barrier is a bit slow to react sometimes so if your dog gets excited easily, he'll run through the barrier so fast that he doesn't notice the shock. This happens A LOT. 6. And worst of all, it doesn't show in the picture, but the way this device works is the collar has two long metal prongs that MUST have contact with the dogs' skin. For one, I worry about the comfort for my dogs, but also it is too difficult to get the prongs to make contact with the skin. My dogs' fur isn't unusually long. Naturally one thinks that the best solution is to make the collar tighter. I've made the collars so tight that I worry that its hurting my dogs, and it STILL doesn't always make contact. The instructions even say that the dogs shouldn't wear the collar for more than 12 hours or else you risk damaging their skin. I was hopeful because so many other people gave this product good reviews, but now that I've owned three, I can't understand how this product has managed to earn such a high review score. This is the first time I've been disappointed by reading reviews. In conclusion, this is a pretty expensive device that just doesn't work very well. If you love your pet, you're not going to want to put this very uncomfortable looking device on them. And even if you feel that you're desperate enough to make them wear this, its too difficult to make the prongs make consistent contact with the skin. Even if you manage this, they will be smart enough to run through the barrier if the barrier is protecting something like a door way.

I read all the reviews and I still purchased this product. I never worked. Let me outline why you shouldn't buy this product 1. The product is poorly made. All the battery covers are very thin and fragile plastic that will brake with any minor force. This is important because if they break, your batteries fall out and the product is useless. 2. The actual range of the base is not even close to the advertised range. Using a tape measure, I calculated the range to be half of what was actually on the package insert. Now this isn't a major issue, if you know this from the begginig. 3. The collar fails to work if you dog has any significant amount of hair around the neck. For some reason, the prongs failed to make contact and thus this rendered the product useless. I have no idea if this problem would be solved by shaving your dog, but this seems a bit excessive in my opinion. 4. This is the most important flaw of the product. The range of coverage of the base is actually a horizontal line, and not a dome. What I mean by this is that the base has to be EXACTLY at the level of your dog's collar. Anything below or above this line renders the product useless. We placed ours over a small chair, but if you have a very active dog , they could jump over the base without being shocked. Adhering it to a wall also does not solve the problem, since the line of coverage is horizontal to the plane of the base (the coverage are would go from floor to ceiling if you adhere it to the wall) 5. The beeping sound is very faint. When testing this out on my dog, i had a hard time hearing when the beeping initiated. This may be a minor issue if the whole system worked adequately. I tried this out for over 24 hours and could not get it to work properly. Please, do not purchase, you are wasting your time and money.

This was the perfect remedy for our specific situation. We ended up getting 2 additional transmitters because this works so well. Here was our situation. Recently we ended up getting a kitten from a cat hoarding garbage house situation. The shelter told us that this would be a 'project animal' so we were fully aware. He was very sick and it took a month before he was even well enough to get around on his own. After some time, good food, good meds, and TLC he began wandering the house. That's when we discovered that he liked to poop on beds, comforters and pillows, pee in tubs, and dig up the plants. So we have used the barriers to cordon off the areas and make them off limits to him. At least for now. We have one on the stairs which prevents him from going up to the bedrooms. And one under the brand new sectional couch which I would assume he will try to poo on if he gets the chance. So hopefully this will train him to just stay away and not have this pattern continue. This gives him freedom to roam around during the day and we don't have to worry about keeping bedroom and bathroom doors closed and our other cat can roam freely. Cons: The pet has to wear a collar, You need to remember to take the collar off at night and turn it off (which I forget to turn it off all the time), make sure the collar is snug enough to touch skin or it won't work Pros: Give pets freedom within boundaries, little or NO training time required our pet caught on right away The first time you see your pet walk into a 'zone' and get shocked is kind of scary. So perhaps have the little kids not around. He caught on very quickly after that. I will report back on the battery life in the transmitters and collar. We began using this system on December 13 and it arrived VERY quickly. Thank you. 01/13/17 - Mid January we had to change the batteries in the collar. We discovered him outside of his borders. Changed batteries and he was fine. Oh and we put a second unit on the stairway because he was dashing so fast and bypassing the shock. Now with two units and new batteries, he is back on track. 02/21/17 - Well, we thought we needed to change batteries again (in the collar) did that. Still got outside the borders (which is just up the stairs). So we changed batteries in the transmitters today. He gets very lonely if someone is not around so I think his need for affection is just too powerful. He was up the stairs 4 times today. New batteries in everything still hasn't seemed to affect him. Not sure what strategy to use next. We would love to have him upstairs or wherever he wants to go but can do without the pooping on our beds, closets, bathtubs, and sinks. I am hoping that at least the time he has been limited to the main floor, he has forgotten about bed-pooping and we can do away with the collar all together. I will update again.

The device never worked. No matter how many times you put new batteries. And how many times you follow the instructions

Unfortunately there is no correction happening whatsoever for my cat. The unit works but I guess the cat's hair isolate the skin from the electricity. I would return but I'm keeping it in the hope that at least the beeping sound will work as deterrent.

En pocos días logramos cambiar el mal comportamiento de nuestro perro, que empezó a tirar la rejita que limita la zona de comida de nuestros gatos.

I bought this product to keep my cat from jumping on the counters and stealing food. The product initially worked well but about 4-months after I started using it the sensor is no longer turning on. During this 4-month period I ordered the mini-barriers for certain areas of the house and each of those barriers didn't turn on when they arrived. I had to return them both and eventually gave up.

Leí las instrucciones e incluso comencé a acostumbrar a mi gata por un par de días a que trajera el collar, pero rápidamente se dió cuenta que si se quedaba parada en el lugar de rango por suficiente tiempo, las correcciones se detienen (sistema de seguridad del mismo dispositivo), que si corre para pasar la barrera puede burlarla, o simplemente si lo que le llama la atención es lo suficientemente valioso, vale la pena ignorar las correcciones - es decir, el nivel de corrección es demasiado bajo incluso para una gata de pelo corto de peso normal. El collar está ajustado como se debe, a la altura adecuada siguiendo el instructivo pero parece no tener mucho efecto. Voy a probarlo unas semanas más y si no, iniciaré el proceso de devolución