Biscuit is a 7-year-old beagle mix, about 22 pounds, and she is not a jumper. That last part matters more than anything else in this article. For our first season in the motorhome I clipped her to a tie-out cable on a ground stake beside the picnic table, and every single evening I unwound that cable from the table legs at least twice. The FXW Rollick dog playpen solved a problem I honestly did not know had such a simple answer. We bought it about two years ago and it now rides in the outside storage bay of our 25-foot Class C on every trip.
We are not gear people. Dean and I are 66 and 64, we are retired, we bought a used 2019 Class C three years ago, and we take about six trips a year, mostly four to ten nights at state parks and private parks in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and New Mexico. What follows is ten reasons the FXW playpen earned its spot in that bay, written the way I would explain it to the couple parked in the next site over.
Ten reasons, eight panels, one five-minute setup
The FXW Rollick dog playpen is 24 inches tall with 8 metal panels, a gravity-actioned door latch, and a listed weight of 23.8 pounds. It is the one piece of dog gear we have never once thought about leaving at home.
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The listing says these portable dog fences go up in under five minutes, and I timed it once, mostly out of suspicion. It was about five minutes the first few tries and less now that I know which panel goes where. Eight panels connect into whatever shape I want, and I put the door panel facing the RV steps. There is nothing to inflate, nothing to screw together, and nothing to read twice. Dean has his coffee poured before I finish.
Eight panels bend into the shape your campsite actually gives you
Some sites hand you a wide patch of grass beside the door. Some hand you gravel and a narrow strip. Eight panels means I can close it into a square, stretch it into a rectangle, or bend it around the picnic table. The listing gives the assembled square footprint as about 46.5 inches by 46.5 inches at 23.6 inches high, and that is a size I can find room for almost anywhere, even on a tight pad. Sites are not built for dogs. The pen forgives that.
Twenty-four inches is the right height for a calm, small dog
Biscuit is 22 pounds and she is calm, and the listing sizes this pen for small dogs at 24 inches tall. She has never jumped it and never pushed at it. I want to be plain with you about that. This is not a fence for a determined escape artist. If your dog clears the coffee table on a normal Tuesday, buy taller than this. If your dog naps, this height is plenty.
The door latch works with one hand, which sounds small until it isn't
The closure is a gravity-actioned locking latch. It drops shut on its own and you lift it to open. That means I can hold a leash in one hand and work the door with the other, without setting anything down in the mud. Sounds like a small thing. It is not a small thing on a wet morning with a dog who has decided she needs out right now.
It weighs 23.8 pounds and packs down flat into the storage bay
The listing puts the whole pen at 23.8 pounds. It folds down into a stack of panels, and that stack goes in the outside bay next to the hose and the other gear without me rearranging anything. Loading it does not make me think about my back, and I am 64. Gear that is a chore to move stops getting moved.
Biscuit settles instead of tangling around the table legs
The cable was the real problem. Every time she moved, the cable moved, and sooner or later it found the table legs, the camp chair, or Dean's ankle. Inside the pen she has room to walk a circle, sniff the fence line, and lie down, and then she does exactly that. A dog who is not fighting a tether is a dog who naps. Our happy hour got quieter and a whole lot more pleasant.
Grass, gravel, or the outdoor mat, it does not care
We have set it up on grass at a state park, on gravel at a private park outside Hot Springs, and on the mat right beside the door when the ground was soupy. The panels stand on their own and the whole thing stays where I put it. I do move it around through the day. When the afternoon shade shifts, I shift the pen with it, and that takes about two minutes.
No power, no batteries, no signal to lose
We looked at a wireless fence once, a camper in New Mexico had one, and I could not get past the battery and the boundary that depends on a signal holding. The playpen is metal and gravity. It works at a park with 30-amp hookups and it would work at a park with nothing at all. For two retirees who want fewer things to remember, that alone is worth the space it takes up.
It gives both of us our evening back
Before the pen, sitting outside meant one of us was always half watching the cable. After the pen, we both sit down. We eat, we read, we watch the light go down over the treeline, and I am not doing cable arithmetic in my head. Biscuit is always out there with us and always supervised, and she is content, which means we are content. That is the reason I would buy it again.
It comes home and does the same job in the living room
The listing calls it indoor, yard and RV camping, and that has been true for us. In the off-season it lives in the corner of the living room when family visits with a small dog, and it goes up on carpet in about a minute. Gear that only works in one place is gear you eventually stop packing. This one earns its keep eleven months out of the year, not just the six trips.
What I'd Skip
If I were starting over, here is what I would not spend money on. A tie-out cable and a ground stake, which is exactly what we had, because it cost us every relaxed evening of that first season. A long line tied to the picnic table, same problem with a different name. And anything that needs a battery to tell my dog where she is allowed to stand. I would also skip this specific pen if your dog is a jumper, a digger, or over about 25 pounds, because 24 inches is not going to argue with a determined dog. One more honest note: the pen is not a babysitter. We are outside with Biscuit whenever she is in it. It buys us a place to put her down, not permission to leave the campground.
The pen is not a babysitter. It is the thing that lets both of us sit down at the same time.
Two years in the storage bay and it still goes up in five minutes
The FXW Rollick is 24 inches tall, 8 metal panels, a gravity-actioned door latch, and 23.8 pounds on the listing. If you camp with a calm small dog and you are tired of untangling a cable, this is the simplest fix we have found.
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