Shield Plan Terms

Pet Stop of Alabama (McDonald Brothers, Inc.) · Effective September 23, 2026

This page says plainly what your plan includes, what it doesn't, and where the limits are. If anything here is unclear, call the office at 205-982-5196 and a person will explain it.

1. What you're buying

A Shield or Shield Plus plan is a service plan for one Pet Stop system at one address, and it covers every dog on that system. It is not insurance and it is not an equipment warranty. Each plan runs one year from the day it starts.

2. The scheduled visits

Both plans include one line marking visit each plan year: we walk your boundary and flag the wire. Shield Plus adds a fall system checkup, with a mapped report of your property emailed to you. Marking visits run late winter through spring, and Plus checkups run in the fall. We schedule both by area, and both need reasonable access to the yard. If a season passes and the visit didn't happen, it doesn't roll over to the next year.

3. Service calls

Without a plan, a service call starts with a $160 base charge that covers the trip within 25 miles of our Riverchase office and the first hour. Members don't pay the base charge. You pay labor only, billed by the half hour, plus any parts, with your member discount taken off both.

	Shield	Shield Plus
$160 base charge	Waived	Waived
Labor ($45 per half hour) and parts	10% off	15% off
Travel beyond 25 miles ($2.25 a mile standard)	$1.75 a mile	No charge to 40 miles, then $1.75 a mile

Parts means wire, splices, straps, contact points and similar parts. Replacement receivers and transmitters are equipment, and the plan doesn't discount them.

4. Wire breaks

One wire break locate and repair is included each plan year, with up to 100 feet of replacement wire on Shield or 150 feet on Plus. More wire than that, or a repair that needs a full re-run of the boundary, is quoted at member rates before any work begins. Travel beyond 25 miles on that visit is billed at your member rate from section 3. A second break in the same plan year is billed as a member service call. Reburying wire that erosion has exposed isn't included.

5. What the plan doesn't pay for

When we do any of this work, it's quoted separately:

Transmitter replacement. Those failures almost always come with a lightning strike or a surge. Labor on the visit is still billed at your member rate.
Equipment that's lost or stolen.
Damage from someone else's work in the yard.
Damage from a repair attempt by someone other than us.
New driveway or sidewalk crossings.
Changes to your boundary layout.
Training visits.
Batteries. Those are covered by the Battery Plan, sold separately: four batteries per dog shipped once a year, $65 per dog with sales tax included, renewing yearly until you cancel.

6. Your equipment warranty is separate

The manufacturer's warranty covers the equipment itself. Nothing about having a plan, or not having one, changes it. When a receiver is replaced under warranty, the manufacturer's replacement fee applies. Shield Plus takes 10% off that fee, once per dog per plan year.

7. Billing, renewal and canceling

	Shield	Shield Plus
Paid yearly	$199	$299
Paid monthly, 12 payments	$19.95 a month	$29.95 a month
Store credit, each plan year	$25	$75

Either way you pay, the plan runs a full year. There's no enrollment fee and no cancellation fee.
We email before each plan year renews. One reply cancels it.
A yearly plan runs to the end of its year. Canceling stops the next renewal.
A monthly plan is a year paid in twelve installments. If you cancel partway through and haven't used that year's wire break repair, had a scheduled visit or used that year's store credit, your payments stop. If you have, the rest of that year's payments are due.
Store credit is issued at the start of each plan year, is good at our online store, and doesn't carry over to the next year.
If prices change, current members hear about it before it applies to them.
New Pet Stop systems we install include their first year of Shield, starting on the install date. We'll email before that year ends.

8. Transfers

If you sell the house, the plan can go to the new owners for the rest of the plan year at no charge. Tell us and we'll introduce ourselves. If you move within our service area, the plan moves with you.

9. Service area

We serve the Birmingham metro, the 280 corridor, Tuscaloosa and the lakes. Travel beyond 25 miles of our Riverchase office is billed per mile as shown in section 3. If you're outside that area, call before you enroll and we'll quote the travel.

10. Effective date and changes

These terms take effect September 23, 2026. If they change, the new date appears here, and a plan follows the terms it was sold under until it renews.