The fence works great for us! My parents have had inground fences before so our dog was well trained from visits there. After reading some of the reviews, I was a little skeptical, but it seems to me the dogs were more of an issue than the fence in the poor reviews. One thing I noticed though, is our fence wont work under setting 4 for distance, which is works fine for us, but id an odd little quirk. Batteries last about a month for our dog who is constantly outside, however I just purchased 2 batteries for 12.99 from petco, so its not horribly expensive. Overall, I would definitely recommend this product.