iFetch Too

Just to start with, I hate the customer service because of the first version of iFetch. They are not friendly and not interested in helping. Even though the first one was a huge failure for my dog (everything was a limitation) and their customer service was horrible, I had to try out the "iFetch too" version with fear but backed up by amazon excellent service, I could take that chance. My dog is a boston terrier 2 yr old and is very active. His play time involves ball for more than 5 hrs a day. So we wanted something like this and since he was already trained on the first generation of the ifetch, he immediately realized that it is a bigger version and started playing on it from day 1 of the machines arrival. He has been playing with it indoors and outdoors for almost every day 2 hrs total for the past 5 months. I repeat: every day 2 hrs for the past 5 months and the machine has not shown any symptoms of breaking down like the one before. So there is no need to contact customer service as of now. I do charge it every day, clean it once every 2 weeks, especially when he plays outside with it. When playing outside, we tend to monitor him and change tennis balls frequently to avoid the slobber problem, since it slows down the tennis ball. Also, when the tennis ball is more wet, he tends to catch at the opening it self rather than chasing it. We use Penn tennis balls for this and they seem to work well. He can be considered as a beta tester for this model and he is pushing limits of the machine even when I am writing this review. He does play by himself now and takes rest in between and plays again and goes on doing that. Will definitely be interested to buy more of their products in future and definitely will recommend this version. ******Update***** Still going strong after having it for 9 months now. Just continuing to clean and change tennis balls when they get too wet. Still recommend and 5 stars ******Update******* More than a year now and still going super strong. I just opened up the back of the iFetch to clean and found a lot of grass (my dog plays outdoor) and ball fur stuck in there (see pic). Cleaning was easy and it is good to go again. ******Update******* Finally after 1.8 years of service the iFetch crashed on us. The rubber rolls inside eroded and item is broke now. Ordering one more now.

Well where to start? First things first, in theory, this could be a great item but in reality, it simply fails. Before I go into the several design flaws, let me get to the final point that after about 2 months, ours has completely died and will not throw a ball at all. Basically a $216 paperweight. The good news is that our dog loved ours before it died, it was just more trouble than it was worth and now it's worthless to boot. As to the specifics. There are several minor issues that really aren't that big of a deal if the big issues were not present. The included tennis type balls are basically junk and my 1 yr old beagle destroys them in just a couple of hours. If you have a bigger dog or a real chewer, I wouldn't even risk giving them to the dog for fear of choking. The other issue is that any tennis type ball seems to get slobbery (if that's a word..LOL) to the point that the thrower will not throw them. Again, not that big of a deal because we replaced the tennis balls with the medium sized Chuck-It balls (2.5") which throws very well. The outside plastic trim ring on the opening where the ball ejects also was rather flimsy and our beagle scratched it off trying to get the ball out of the launcher when it failed to launch. Didn't really affect the machine so not that big of a deal. The one issue we had that really isn't the fault of the machine was our dog would often put the ball in the opening where the ball comes out causing us to then get the stuck ball out. Some sort of guard would be great to prevent that, but my option was to build a box that the whole machine fit into with two boards on the outside that kept her from putting it in the wrong hole. The biggest design flaw in my opinion is that the machine works off of a battery that quickly loses charge even when plugged in at all times. I doubt many buyers will ever use theirs outdoors, so why not just make the motor run directly off of 110v AC so the motor throws consistently? With the way these work, the first dozen throws on a fresh charge will throw very strong and far but very quickly the battery weakens and before long, the thrower is throwing the ball 6-8 ft max even on the highest setting. Our dog loved ours so much she would play non stop for hours if we didn't take it away from her, but most times we didn't have to because it would stop throwing very far at all anyway, so we turned it off to let it recharge. The 2nd serious issue is with the launcher rollers that have these elevated ribs. Those seemed to wear down to nothing in no time and that was before we switched to the chuck it type ball. With those worn down, it further reduced how far it could throw and caused a lo of very short throws. Finally, the BIG issue. Despite the shortcomings we figured it was still an OK purchase until it totally and completely stopped working less than 2 months after purchasing it. We're past the Amazon return time frame so now we are going to be at the mercy of iFetch directly. Hopefully they will treat us fairly, I will update this review with what happens. In short, had I known then what I know now about the machine, I would not purchase it again.

We'll see how it goes, but so far my dog is terrified of it because it's loud as hell. Not loud like a car but loud like a gunshot or sharp thunder. It's taken half a ton of treats for her to come within distance of touching it. Next step is getting her to stop dropping the ball 2 feet away then trying to come for the treat. Overall it's okay, but it's FAR too shocking sound-wise (even I don't want to listen to it more than a few times in a row...super irritating) and the throw seems inconsistent. Sometimes it bounces before hitting a wall 10 feet away, sometimes it hits the bottom of the wall, sometimes it hits halfway up the wall and randomly it hits 2 feet to the right or left of where it's aimed - good for her (unpredictability) but not great on hollow doors (loud) in an apartment building. Oh, hey... she just went over and sniffed and pawed at it FINALLY.....progress. Arrived in good condition despite customs ripping the box apart and then not re-packaging it carefully, and charged up so we could start playing out of the box which is nice.

It works perfectly and it's very easy to use. The only warning would be that if your dog likes to wait for the ball to catch it, it will be very difficult to train them to drop the ball themselves as there's no time delay from the ball being dropped and launched. I have read that tennis balls work as well but I didnt find that to be the case. They do launch but only a few feet. Instead buy Kong balls and those work perfectly. Overall great toy, its sturdy and keeps my dog entertained.

La carga de la pila toma mucho tiempo y las pelotas son demasiado ligeras y fáciles de romperse por un perro.

Absolutely fantastic my dogs love it

Sicherlich hat dieses Gerät seinen Preis. Die Wurfmaschine beschäftigt unseren Benny aber kolossal. Leider ist die Wurfmaschine mehr Interessant als eigentlich der Ball der abgefeuert wird.Benny kann es nicht erwarten bis der ball fliegt, sondern sobald sich die Wurfmaschine spannt und der Ball aus der Öffnung fliegen möchte, ist unser Benny schon am Auswurfloch mit seiner Schnauze drinn..... Wir üben noch an Bennys Geduld. Und wenn der ball mal fliegt, dann bringt Ihn Benny auch gleich zurück. legt Ihn aber bis jetzt noch vor der Wurfmaschine ab....Na ja ...denke es muss noch ne weile Geübt werden. Mehr wie 10 Minuten sollte man allerdings nicht am Stück üben... Dennoch bereitet uns der I fetch Too ser viel Spass .

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