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I've been training my dog now for several months using Freddy kings self trained retriever series on YouTube. Me and the pup have made TREMENDOUS strides using this system. My pup is a year and six months old, black lab that we rescued 6 months into his life. This is my FIRST dog, and my FIRST time training a retriever, but am absolutely hooked. Now to my question, I'm not sure if anyone is following his videos, but we're on video seven were you introduce the sport dog collar. My question is how do I introduce it without giving him such a negative out look. I understand the association rules, like make positive associations, but he can't stand this thing. On setting one when I knick him he's yelping. They specify that you should never hear your dog vocalize, but that's the FIRST setting. What I've been doing to try to avoid him hating it so much is using the vibrate part of the system, and he listens well with it, but I know the shock will be needed further on. Any and all advice is welcomed, even the negative. Thanks in advance.


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I'm sure Rick will be on with a better answer soon enough. But my thought is; if the vibrate setting is enough for your dog to respond to, that's all you need to use. The lightest amount of pressure to have him respond, no matter the tool used to apply the pressure is all you should be using. Just because you have an e collar doesn't mean you must be shocking your dog. Vibrate is all I've ever used on my dog, because that's all she needed.

team216 wrote:I'm sure Rick will be on with a better answer soon enough. But my thought is; if the vibrate setting is enough for your dog to respond to, that's all you need to use. The lightest amount of pressure to have him respond, no matter the tool used to apply the pressure is all you should be using. Just because you have an e collar doesn't mean you must be shocking your dog. Vibrate is all I've ever used on my dog, because that's all she needed.

That makes sense. I was just trying to go by the videos that comes with the sport dog collar, how they introduce it to the dog, and such. But I was thinking eventually he would get used to the vibrate and start ignoring it. So far it's working pretty great though.


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team216 wrote:I'm sure Rick will be on with a better answer soon enough. But my thought is; if the vibrate setting is enough for your dog to respond to, that's all you need to use. The lightest amount of pressure to have him respond, no matter the tool used to apply the pressure is all you should be using. Just because you have an e collar doesn't mean you must be shocking your dog. Vibrate is all I've ever used on my dog, because that's all she needed.

I've never put a collar on any of my retrievers and only one of my pointing dogs, but I certainly agree with the above, for what little that's worth.

I used a e-collar only on initial training to enforce the power of No, Stop or such commands from a remote distance. As in a distracted younger dog veering off to get something they should not or go where they could get hurt. A loud NO and if they don't respond they get another NO and a shock. Now the commands are respected and the dog listens remotely without the use of the collar any more. The vibrate reminds them of the shock and is enough to reinforce the command prompt again.

All in all, I like it for training a younger dog, but don't like how its used many times by a lot of trainers.

Archeryrob wrote:I used a e-collar only on initial training to enforce the power of No, Stop or such commands from a remote distance. As in a distracted younger dog veering off to get something they should not or go where they could get hurt. A loud NO and if they don't respond they get another NO and a shock. Now the commands are respected and the dog listens remotely without the use of the collar any more. The vibrate reminds them of the shock and is enough to reinforce the command prompt again.

All in all, I like it for training a younger dog, but don't like how its used many times by a lot of trainers.

Thank you for your input, I think one thing that got me kinda side tract about using the collar so much is all the training programs that do. They all seem to use it to force place, and the basic commands.


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That collar will be like gold when/if you decide to FF.

Had to do it and the vibrate setting was all I used to stimulate. The dog learned pretty quickly how to "turn it off" by hurrying the eff up and bringing me the dummy. Used it on the table and field.
The beeper is handy for getting the dog's attention too.

aunt betty wrote:That collar will be like gold when/if you decide to FF.

Had to do it and the vibrate setting was all I used to stimulate. The dog learned pretty quickly how to "turn it off" by hurrying the eff up and bringing me the dummy. Used it on the table and field.
The beeper is handy for getting the dog's attention too.

FF is a sticky subject for me. From what I read a lot of trainers absolutely recommend doing it, and most say a dog isn't finished until it is done. We start that next, and I'm nervous about how to go about it. Any tips? Advice?


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I'm in the process of training my pup as well with help from a respected trainer in out HRC. I'm in the process of force fetching right now and it's going great! Prior to force fetching we had solidified his obedience as well as his collar conditioning... using an E-collar is no different than a correction with a choke/pinch collar. That said I've heard from a lot of guys in our HRC that Sportdog Collars are WAY too hot for most dogs. You only need a light stimulation to get their attention you never want a vocal response. I suggest DT Systems RAPT 1400, thats what I have for my pups and it works great!


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Kerrywhite30 wrote:

team216 wrote:I'm sure Rick will be on with a better answer soon enough. But my thought is; if the vibrate setting is enough for your dog to respond to, that's all you need to use. The lightest amount of pressure to have him respond, no matter the tool used to apply the pressure is all you should be using. Just because you have an e collar doesn't mean you must be shocking your dog. Vibrate is all I've ever used on my dog, because that's all she needed.

That makes sense. I was just trying to go by the videos that comes with the sport dog collar, how they introduce it to the dog, and such. But I was thinking eventually he would get used to the vibrate and start ignoring it. So far it's working pretty great though.


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I know what you mean about following a guideline. Sometimes you have to call audible.

This should be renamed e collars for soft dogs.
Or it could just be the power in the sport dog, who knows.

Tried the ear pinching thing and it wasn't enough.
Had to go back and start over with table work and intro the collar.
Some dogs are a little more hard-headed. Mine is one of them.