doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com School me on e-collars

I'm looking for a new e collar for my golden, Gus. The two we had (Dogtra) are finally toast - and good riddance. I cursed them often, though they were effective - just poorly designed.

So who makes the best collars now? I definitely want a vibrator mode which is what I use 99% of the time. It helps me get Gus's attention and he can see where I am or where I'm pointing without me making a lot of noise that only serves to alert birds and disrupt whatever passes for serenity in an Iowa landscape. Otherwise the only reason I really need the shocking part is when he insists on chasing deer, as he did today - this one being dead and lying just below the county highway. He has mostly learned to not run the live ones, but dead is too much.

One that has even sorta decent ergonomics would be nice too. My main gripe with Dogtra is that its transmitter was designed by an alien lifeform that came from a universe where the laws of physics were exactly contrary to our own.

Anyway, what's favored out there today? Light for the dog, easy and quick to use for me (with gloves), dependable. With a vibrator. Any other features that I don't know I want?

Thanks

Tri-Tronics has merged with Garmin. I have been using the Sport Dog G3 by Tri-Tronics for 8 years and it will run 3 collars. I change the handheld's battery every 3 years. It doesn't have the vibrator mode, but a tone precedes the tingle which has 5 settings. The low is barely felt in my hand. The tone can be sent without juice. The Sport Dog Pro has the tone and vibrating feature in addition to the juice. This is probably a non-starter, but a bill in the SC Senate has been introduced to ban the use of training collars on dogs. Probably PETA inspired nonsense. Gil

Why don't you ask for advice over on Upland Journal since you think it is so great????

"Never pay Dave one more dime",.. But shamelessly use his forum to solicit advice.... eh??? What a piece of work!

Keith does have a point. I mean you�ve already paid to be a member might as well get your money�s worth!

Sport dog is a good value line, and has tone/vibrate as a stimulus choice.

Goldens probably don't need gps or 9 mile range.

This morning he did when he disappeared to munch on a deer roadkill on the neighbors.

Otherwise, in really thick stuff, his color matches tallgrass prairie perfectly and is good enough to disappear in cattails at well under 10 yds. However, GPS is not a priority. 1/2 mile range (=1/4 mile, pragmatically, it is occasionally useful on a young dog, but that is about max for us).

Steve Snell's Gun Dog Supply is fast on delivery and can answer any questions often quicker than Garmin's customer service. On my old Astro 320 gps system I was having trouble in the woods with it and got them on the phone and resolved the problem in the nick of time. Gil

That's good to know and definitely a value that is worth something.

On a couple of other forums, the Garmin Sport Pro model looks pretty attractive to me. I'll look at these some more and especially Snells website.

I know you said you don't like the Dogtra units but this year I got the updated 2700TB Train and Beep collar (actually the 2 dog unit) and I like it as they finally added vibrate/page. Controller is small, battery life is great. I pretty much only use vibrate and the locator. I like that Dogtra has dedicated buttons for vibrate, nick, continuous, as well as locate, not multifunction controls. I only use the beeper in the interrogate mode. I couldn't imagine having a dog running with a beeper on continuous in the field. The beeper isn't super loud (it is integrated with the collar and points down: not a second device on top) but certainly you could find your dog at 10 m.

I also have the Sport Dog unit with beeper and it works fine but you have to operate a rotary switch to change from vibrate to stimulate so I feel the ergonomics are not great but it has served me well for over 5 years.

I have the Garmin GPS unit as well but the collars are pretty heavy and I only use them when I am someplace new or there is tall grass and I would never see the dogs on point. The piece of mind is priceless though.

Bruce

Bruce, my dislike of the Dogtra may be outdated. I'm looking at photos of their transmitters and they look like they have changed.

Vibrate is my major use by far. I do not have the locate (not sure what it is, but sound damn useful). What I disliked is that to vibrate it was very easy to hit the vibe/shock button directly or indirectly while squeezing the unit. They were on opposite sides of the transmitter.