Review for SportDog 100A In-ground Fence System.Preliminary review (6/3/15) focused on installation and set up.OVERALL:After installing and testing for two days, I am very happy with the purchase.• I saved a lot of money with this DIY option, though it required two days of work to enclose my backyard that has an existing fence (mostly chain link but with a wooden gate section). In other words, I did very little digging and burying.• I bought this system because, about a week and a half ago, I adopted a 3-yo lab and almost immediately she climbed the wooden gate. I immediately started research on fence systems and happily bought this one.• As indicated in the instruction manual, there are issues with interference with buried electrical lines and phone lines to your house where your fence wire may be within a few feet of these.• The instruction manual is good. If you want to do more study, you can also find the manual on the company's website. I recommend reading it before buying.INSTALLATION:I have a good sized suburban lot with an existing fence with a 4 ft. chain link fence with chain link gates and a section with a wood gate. I have a recently rescued 3-yo 50 lb. lab who can climb the wood part of the fence (and probably the chain link, but I installed the in-ground fence before finding out). My goal was to enclose my backyard but I ultimately went around my whole house.• It took two days for installing and training my dog. I used exactly 500 ft of wire (one spool).• I purchased the standard 20-guage wire. I don't yet know about its long term durability but it seemed OK. I don't feel now like I should have upgraded, but this may be because of my specific use and I have no experience with durability yet. However, if you will run the wire through tubing (I did a section this way), a heavier gauge will definitely be easier to work with. See below.• Most of the installation was along/on an existing chain link fence. As one reviewer noted (I read lots of these reviews first and they were very helpful) use zip-ties. DON'T weave the wire through the fence as recommended in the instruction manual as this is not even possible unless you want to make lots of splices. Weaving will take forever. The zip-tie method was relatively quick.• I zip-tied the wire along the top of the 4' chain link fence.• Where there were gates, I zip-tied the wire along a chainlink diagonal until it hit the ground and then buried the wire under the gate.• I have an underground power line and a phone line along part of my fence line. The instruction manual says this will cause interference and to not run the wire parallel. Mostly, where the wire was along the top of my 4' fence, this was not a problem. But there is interference where the wire is in the ground and close to the buried utility lines. This could not be avoided in my set up. Fortunately it still works, not perfectly, but between the way it works, an existing fence, flags, and training my dog, it seems adequate so far. This would be a problem without an existing fence!• You must make a continuous loop of wire to the controller box. Although my purpose was to enclose my backyard, I went all the way around my house, running the wire around my front porch and across my driveway to make the loop back to the controller. This way, apart from the backyard, the dog cannot leave the front porch (we didn't want her in the front yard) and she cannot leave the garage with the collar on.• Apart from attaching the wire to my chainlink fence and going underground for gates, I found the system flexible in terms of installation. In some places, behind some bushes, I just left the wire on the ground (although ideally I would run this area through some pipe). Around the porch, I first taped the wire to the underside lip of the porch planks and then went back to staple them. In another section, as I went along, I did run the wire through some flexible plastic tubing.• Use of tubing: I used landscape irrigation tubing sometimes called "silly pipe"; it is cheap, easy to cut, and flexible, but hard and smooth, so wire runs through it easily. However, this tubing comes coiled and wants to stay coiled, so you need to use short runs or have a helper to stretch the tube while you push the wire through. This worked surprisingly well for about 15 ft of tubing working by myself with 20-guage wire. I'm not sure if running wire through pipe and then burying it will affect the signal, but I think it does; you have to adjust the settings on the controller box. However, for some applications (not a lawn), I think you could run the wire through silly pipe and then use landscape staples to hold the pipe to the ground; then you can avoid burying the wire. Again, heavier gauge wire will push through pipe more easily.• I made no splices.• Again, you need to make a continuous loop of wire back to the system. Where you twist the ends of the wire together, or make a twisted splice, the signal is killed. Unless you install the control box right on the fence line (unlikely), you need to make a twisted wire back to the control box to maintain the geometry of your fence. Use the power drill technique to twist the wire: insert the ends and clamp them down in the part that holds the drill bit and turn it on. Works great.• In my landscape, I had outdoor power. So I took a chance with installing the controller outdoors. I bought a big waterproof conduit junction box, drilled a few small holes for the wires, attached the box right next to my outdoor (waterproof and grounded) outlet, and installed the controller in there. There is some risk for water infiltration, but these boxes are used for heavier electrical purposes, so it seemed reasonable; I preferred this over drilling a hole through the wall of my house, making a much longer twisted wire run to my fence line, and dealing with less convenient indoor installation/outlet locations.SET UP AND TRAINING:• The controller box has a setting for the boundary range between warning (beep and buzz) and "correction" (shock). It is sensitive to adjustment. I was surprised (at the narrowest setting) how sensitive the collar is to the proximity to the wire both vertically and horizontally (i.e., dog head/neck height sniffing ground vs standing vs standing up on hind legs to get ready to jump/climb over a fence).• Since I have an existing fence that shows the boundary already (as compared to a completely invisible in-ground set up), I dialed the range down on the controller box to make a very narrow boundary— to prevent climbing over the fence, while not making my yard effectively smaller. As other reviewers have noted, if you have a narrow lot or narrow enclosure conditions, this kind of fence will make your space even more narrow.• Although flags are to show you and your dog where a buried wire is where there is no other indication, I put up the flags along my fence anyway. My newly rescued dog had a few days of experience with my yard and fence before the installation, so I wanted to show her that there was something new. I'm also training her not to go through open gates. I will train her to only leave the house through the garage and under certain conditions. Quickly I think she will learn what the beeping/buzzing means and will stay away from new areas without the need for flags.• With an existing fence, it took me less than 30 minutes to teach my dog to stay away from the fence (or flags)— not to climb it. Or so it seems. She is smart, so she got two shocks and learned about the beeping and buzzing warning and to back away. Or so it seems! Being smart and obsessed with small woodland animals, she may yet test the limits of risk and reward. I will report on that later.