Thread: E-Collars... Practical Advice

Maybe you should go to someone that knows what they are doing and how to read the dog as you cant see whats going on when you are right on top of the dog, i.e next to it. And as for adhd maybe take the energy out of the dog a bit like finding if the dog is crazy for balls or what not, make training fun, and I wouldnt use a e collar on such a young pup as it looks bad on you as a leader of the pack and maybe just not patient enough or slow in timing when the dog does the right thing. Im not attacking just saying the maybe's. Or the dogs just not interested try the look at me thing at home and make it longer so when your out maybe you might have him looking.

My dog just wants to kill the guy with the sleeve as he has a very high prey drive and did have training of an e collar with good results at the time when in training, before I was injured so no training since in bite work. And no longer working in K9 every week so not worried to much.

Have you tried emailing Steve Courtney and asking his advice? I've found him helpful & generous with his time when I've contacted him in the past.

My understanding of Steve's manual though was that you're supposed to check the working level each time you work your dog on the collar, as it might change slightly depending on your dog's mood or the other distractions around in the environment etc. Also, if you've got one of those Dogtra collars with 127 levels of stimulation, it might not be unusual that your dog works at slightly different levels sometimes since the gaps between the different stim levels are so very small?

If I were you I'd email Steve and ask though, since you're using his protocol.

Thanks Guys,

All good advice....

Just to fill in a few details, Villain is "ball mad" and we play ball exhaustively, daily. That means I get exhausted, he has fun! Even after many hours of ball play at the local footy oval, walking, yard activity and such, I am falling down and he is still going. If I'm there, he's busy. I figure he rests when I am not there... lol. I suspect that there is just such a lot of activity going on inside him (when I am present) that the low level stim is just ignored. That said, I do not want to proceed to a higher level to get his attention because then we cannot back track to the lower one.

I've chatted to Steve ad nauseum- he is indeed very generous with his time and advice, but, short of taking him up to see Steve, we're a bit stuck. Valkyrie may indeed be on the money- I know this dog so damn well that perhaps I am missing the obvious!

127 levels of stim probably makes the dif between 11 and 13 absolutey moot anyway, but my focus was to be patient and get it right.

Since, I have started using Koehler Method, and am having fantastic success. I think I will save the e for later when we have a good understanding of basic obedience, and perhaps Villain has a little maturity on him. I'm thinking maybe he will begin to settle more when he leaves Juvenile stage and perhaps we will have more luck with lower stim levels, thus allowing more advanced training with the e and less trial and error.

Hope that made some sense, and thanks heaps for the replies

Excellent point Kavik... and, no, not yet I haven't. Steve Courtney has a program to purchase in training in drive which has been on my "list" now for a couple of months... if there is anyone out there who has similar programs to share/ purchase can I get some tips?