Bought this for my 12 pound toy fox terrier. He LOVES it! We can play for hours. I was hesitant at first because of the size of the balls, but now that I've seen him with them I'm not worried. It is sooooo much fun! *CAUTION- don't play for long periods of time on carpet. The pads of his feet became bloody and red from running and sliding across the floor to wall carpeting in my house. We now play outside in the grass and have had no issues.* Easy to travel with. I would buy this item again and recommend it to others.
Absolutely love this and so does my dog. The only thing keeping me from giving a five star rating is the balls. They are kind of cheap and don't last long. My dog is only 4 pounds and he kills the balls in less than a week. The replacement balls are very expensive 5 for $25. I did find that the Kong 1.5 inch squeaker balls work great and are WAY less expensive. All and all I highly recommend!!
Day 1: Took a lot of guidance. I would have to hold my hand right by the opening and filter the ball in. He was not scared of it, just couldn't quite figure it out. Day2: I would have to prompt him everytime, but he would put the ball in the bowl and get ready for it to come out. Day 3-4: He acted like this was a foreign object and pretty much wanted nothing to do with it. He would fetch the ball if I put it in, but thats about it. Day 5: I was just sitting here and he was checking the machine out. Putting his nose in the bowl without the ball and trippping the trigger. Looking in the front wondering where the ball was. Licking the inside of the bowl. Day 6: Its like a switch in his little brain flipped and he got. He brought me the ball, and I threw it in the Ifetch and turned back to my desk to do some thanksgiving day shopping. Without any prompting he put it in himself. He did this for 10 minutes without any prompting. After 10 minutes he brought the ball to me. So I threw it across the room for him like we normally do. Did that about 5 times and without any prompting he went back to the Ifetch. So this will be a nice addition and a time consumer for him.
As for the balls. It comes with 3 balls that are 1.5" My dog destroys tennis balls and these hold up better than expected. I had read that the mini kong balls work. The mini Kong are 1.6". Just that .1" does make a difference. The Kong balls do work but, It has gotten stuck a couple of times, they do not fly out as far or fast. If the Kong's worked 100% of the time versus 95% of the time, I would give this a 5 star rating. 5 pack of replacement ifetch balls are 15.00 (3 bucks a ball) the Kong mini (extra small) are a 3 pack for 2.77, so you can see why I would bring this down 1 star as its 2 bucks a ball difference.
Ifetch, if you make your balls less expensive without degrading quality, I will change this to 5 stars.
I gave the iFetch five stars because it is exactly what I expected. I bought it for my 10 year old toy poodle, Archie, and he learned how it works in about three minutes, and loves playing with it. There are two minor issues I have with it that aren’t big enough to take any stars away and overall it’s a lot of fun and we LOVE it. Sometimes I have to put it up at bedtime so that we know it's time to be done playing, and the next evening when I get home from work we immediately ask for it to be gotten out again. :)
Shipping was fast and it comes nicely packed. I ordered batteries that arrived with it. I already had a few packages of the Kong extra-small squeak balls that also work in the machine, also available on Amazon Prime for $2.99 a pack.
The iFetch runs on either 6 C batteries, or it comes with an adapter that can be plugged into the wall. The batteries lasted a couple weeks that included a solid 1-2 hours of play each day. The electric cord works great and fits the plug well. This is where one of my two complaints come in, and that is the cord is four or five feet long which would seem generous, but I have found it difficult to find a place to plug it in and have it sit in the middle of the floor as is necessary in both my house and two friends homes. We had to use an extension cord, but it’s not a major issue.
Since we have only played with this in a small apartment we only use the lowest setting which shoots it about ten feet. The machine is a little more powerful when running on electricity, so keep that in mind when choosing a setting. Sometimes Archie likes to stand in front of it and try and catch it (bless his heart, he never does) and it has hit him in the chest, nose, head, and has never caused more than a shake of the head and a sneeze when it hit him directly on the nose. Each next higher setting shoots it about another ten feet, which increases the force the ball comes out with.
My only other issue, which really isn't a product problem, is Archie usually drops the ball into the toy from a few inches above it. Because of the bowl design, the ball will frequently swirl around the edge and pop out. A deeper design wouldn't allow that to happen.
I highly recommend this toy for those little dawgies that love to fetch. It’s easy to train, but you have to know your dog and what it will like as well as how it needs to be trained to use it. To see video of Archie learning how to play with the iFetch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFAc4vuseRg
To answer some of the critics whose poor ratings made me hesitate to purchase the product.:
Too noisy: My dog wasn’t in the least bit phased by the noise, and now the increasing pitch and click of the ball release indicates to him that the ball is about to be launched. I don’t think it’s noisy at all. I’ve posted a video, so you can check it out yourself.
Ball shoots out too hard: I’d say it depends on the setting. I would recommend that you make sure your dog isn’t struck by the ball until he/she has been fully trained and understands getting hit with the ball isn’t part of the game. Then, if she does happen to be struck by a ball and it hurts, she will quickly learn to stay out of the way.
Balls get stuck in the machine: The tennis ball type covering can get a bit frayed after a lot of play. I just grab a scissors and trim off around the balls and we’re good to go for a few more hours of play. Archie doesn’t drool a lot so the balls don’t get that wet.
Balls are too small: This product was designed for small dogs and even so, a large dog is not going to choke on the balls. Dogs are not like toddlers and although they might eat a ball, they won’t choke on it. My toy poodle likes to play with marbles and grapes…..has never choked. However, it looks like there is now a toy for large dogs called the iFetch Too.
This is a great product, I've had no issues with it. We use Kong extra small balls and they work fine even if the outer fuzzy 'wrapper' has been chewed of by above sheepdog.
Feature Product
- Interactive, on demand ball launcher that lets small dogs play fetch to their hearts' content
- Stimulates dogs' minds by challenging them to learn something new
- Strengthens the bond between dogs and their humans and brings a fun new twist to the familiar game of fetch
- Comes with three 1.6 inch mini-tennis balls THESE ARE NOT FULL SIZE TENNIS BALLS
- This is the small iFetch. The iFetch Too is the bigger version that launches standard size tennis balls.
Description
The iFetch automatic ball launcher lets dogs play fetch to their heart’s content! Once your dog places the miniature tennis ball into the top of the iFetch tennis ball machine, this interactive dog toy throws it 10, 20 or 30 feet. Adjust the launch distance with a touch of a button, and let the fun begin. Works with power cord or 6 C-cell batteries. Happy fetching!
Well, my terrier is kinda terrified of the thing. I think it's because she stepped in front of the launcher the first time it started making noise and got whacked by a ball. So any time I drop a ball in, she now hides in the kitchen. I can put treats on the floor around it and she's all, "meh, I'll get those later."
It'll take some work.
My five-year old human, on the other hand, loves the thing. Keeps him going for hours. And plus he keeps making comments about the "little blue balls" so that's been worth some inappropriate laughter. The balls are smaller than I'd expected....I saw some folks mention the Kong Extra Small as refills...I have a bunch of those, and they're just a smidge too big. There must be a Kong Extra Extra Small I don't know about.
I almost returned this because my dog went through the 4 phases of acceptance with this thing. First, he was scared, then he was aggressive towards it, then he was curious, and now finally, he loves it. It took my toy Aussie about 3 solid hours of training over two weeks to finally put the ball in there himself. And he will still sometime wait for me to stand near it before he'll play with it. I think he assumes I still control it somehow.
It works pretty well, although on higher settings the force of the pitch moves the unit and thus changes the trajectory. This is a little annoying because in our case we are trying to shoot the balls down a hallway, so you have to have it aimed just right.
We haven't had any problem with the balls like other reviewers have said, but our dog has lots of other stuff to chew on. I haven't tried the Kong XS balls, but they seem like the same size.
Overall I like it and would purchase it again. I still think it's way over priced, but it has helped our dog get exercise during the cold, dark winter months when we don't take him out as much as we should.
We bought this for our puppy to help tire her out during the winter when we couldn't play outside. We use this a couple times a month and now that we have a two year old we all play with it. We bought some off brand balls that were the same size and it still works great. It will still shoot balls that our dog has pulled the skin off on one side of the ball. We have not had any problems (fingers crossed) with this at all. Still works just as good as the day we bought it and as we played with this today my wife said we really needed to write a review and here we are.
My dogs love it! I have two small dogs and when it is too cold or wet outside and they can't get out, this is how we play. I aim the launcher toward the hallway and they chase after it and bring ball back to me every time. I use two balls and as one is brought to me, I launch the next. Keeps them busy and tires them out so I get a little peace and quiet on cold or rainy days. Still working on getting dogs to drop ball into machine but it works out great. I purchased KONG Air Balls in extra small size as replacements when other balls are chewed or lost. They are cheaper to replace and work well with the machine and are a bit sturdier.
My dog LOVES this! Only complaint/suggestion I would have for iFetch would be to find another distributor for the iFetch balls. These fell apart after the first 2 uses with the machine. I can see this being a safety/choking hazard for small dogs.
If it weren't for the poor/unsafe quality of the balls, I would give this product 5 stars
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