What level do you use on you're Tritronics classic 70?

[dreamrr]

I am able to use level 1 or 2 when training at home, but I am finding when I am in the field hunting, I need to use level 4 to get my GSP's attention. It's like he is super focused and low levels do not phase him when he is chasing a bird or other trash behaviors.

Is 4 too high? What is your opinion? I am new to the e-collar.

[cjhills]

You probably should do more collar conditioning so he understands it better. I do use higher for trash breaking. Once you start going higher you may have to keep on. Cj

[dreamrr]

He is collar conditioned. I've had him at a pro trainers for over two months.

[RayGubernat]

In training and in the field I rarely need to go beyond 1 or 2.

I have a Flyway Special which has both nick and continuous(but I believe the levels are the same as yours) and honestly I rarely need the continuous. a nick or 2 generally gets the dog's attention.

A large part of the reason why only low levels are necessary is the simple fact that the dogs know, without a doubt, that if they ignore the first gentle reminder... there in't no second gentle reminder. The HAMMER comes down and comes down hard. I jump immediately from a relatively gentle 1 or 2 nick to a 5 or 6 continuous for a full eight seconds.

Don't need to do that too many times before the dog gets the picture.

If you call your dog, and when it does not come, you call again, louder and then again louder, you are teaching the dog to ignore you unless you are screaming at the top of your lungs....and eventually it will ignore that as well. If you ratchet up the intensity on the e-collar gradually, you are, in effect, teaching the dog to tolerate the increasing levels of discomfort.

Don't do that.

Call once...then, if no compliance, nick...then, if no compliance, drop the hammer and then, quietly and calmly..saying absolutely nothing...go get the dog. Settle the dog down and try it one more time. Betcha you won't have to shout the second time.

RayG

[cjhills]

In training and in the field I rarely need to go beyond 1 or 2.

I have a Flyway Special which has both nick and continuous(but I believe the levels are the same as yours) and honestly I rarely need the continuous. a nick or 2 generally gets the dog's attention.

A large part of the reason why only low levels are necessary is the simple fact that the dogs know, without a doubt, that if they ignore the first gentle reminder... there in't no second gentle reminder. The HAMMER comes down and comes down hard. I jump immediately from a relatively gentle 1 or 2 nick to a 5 or 6 continuous for a full eight seconds.

Don't need to do that too many times before the dog gets the picture.

If you call your dog, and when it does not come, you call again, louder and then again louder, you are teaching the dog to ignore you unless you are screaming at the top of your lungs....and eventually it will ignore that as well. If you ratchet up the intensity on the e-collar gradually, you are, in effect, teaching the dog to tolerate the increasing levels of discomfort.

Don't do that.

Call once...then, if no compliance, nick...then, if no compliance, drop the hammer and then, quietly and calmly..saying absolutely nothing...go get the dog. Settle the dog down and try it one more time. Betcha you won't have to shout the second time.

RayG

We like call it a training collar and use it as such. Not a forcing or punishing collar. I don't think dogs reason things out and think if I don't do that I will get this. Using that logic you could call him once, put the collar as high as it will go and fry him. He will know not to do that again. Maybe not. More bird work and positive training works and lasts, negative don't. Collar conditioning gives a reward for compliance. Maybe my dogs aren't that tough, but if I used A six for eight seconds they would be howling and running to hide. I have never needed eight seconds. Cj

[RayGubernat]

cj -

I disagree. The dogs do indeed figure out that if they do not comply immediately, something bad is going to happen. Once they learn that, they are in a position to learn that doing what i want them to do gets them praise, allows them to run, hunt and have fun and get into birds.

The whole idea for me is to get the dog to WANT to do what you want it to do. Often that means you first have to get the dog to AVOID doing what you don't want.

Not all dogs are created equal. I had a dog that was out of a Bonafide son on top and Saladin daughter on the bottom. Tough and willful...in the extreme. I had an old short range collar. He would take off after a bird and when i hit the collar, it would roll him and make him howl...for eight seconds. He would then get up and take off again. After I hit the second time he was out of range by the time the unit cycled again.

He finally got convinced that running off was not a real good idea when I traded that collar in for a Tritronics with a one mile + range. Once he understood that he could not get away, he started to listen. Once he started to listen, I was able to kill a whole bunch of birds over him. Once I was able to kill birds for him, he started to WANT to hunt with me and I never really had to use the collar much anymore, and certainly not at those high levels. He knew we were on the same page as far as hunting birds was concerned and he was good with that. So was I.

BTW, they don't make bird dogs like that anymore. Probably a good thing.


My first bird dog was trained in the old way. When he didn't listen...he got his ears stretched. When he didn't come in when called, he got chased down and then ...got his ears stretched. I could actually cover some ground back then.

After a couple of years of this, he came understand that if he hunted with me, he got into birds and had all the fun and freedom he could ask for. Later on, the absolute worst punishment I could adminster to him was to makee him walk at heel in the hunting fields for ten or fifteen minutes. If he was misbehaving in the yard, all i needed to do was call him to me and close my thumb and forefinger on one ear. No pressure was exerted at all. just the gentlest of reminders.

'Till the day he died, if he was messing up, all I had to do was raise my hand, call his name and put my thmb and forefinger together. He KNEW what that meant and dialed it right down.

They don't make dogs like him anymore either.

When I am training and the dog does not obey a nick at 1...I do not go up to 2. That is nagging the dog and teaching it to tolerate the stimulation. Bad idea. I go right from 1 to 4, and that almost always stops a dog dead in its tracks. If the dog is unusually soft, I might only go to 3, but the idea is to stop the errant behavior...immediately. Then i go get the dog, settle it down and bring it back. Then we try it again. You need to do what it takes...no more, but no less. If I do my part...the dog can and does figure out what it is I want them to do. Then they do it and we both have fun.

RayG

[cjhills]

Ray
That very well may work for you, but for the average dog owner it will for sure create a collar shy dog. 8 seconds on a field 70 at any level is too much and at 2 or higher is abusive, at least on my dogs.
Most trainers and manufactures recommend a low enough setting so the dog don't yelp. Also you will very soon have a collarwise dog. Not too bad if the dog always wears a collar, but if you run him in a competition where he can't wear a collar you are in trouble.
We don't know the age of the OP'S dog but I assume young. To expect the young dog to come when you call when he is chasing a bird is setting both the dog and the handler up for failure. Let him chase or take the chase out and do some whoa training. What does the trainer say.
Hopefully we breed dogs that want to hunt with us. Cj

[DogNewbie]

I've found that with my pro 100, my pup responds to 2 low in most situations, but when I was dechasing him on birds, I found that the first few birds of the morning he needed a 3 low to stop the chase and listen to my whoa command. By the third or fourth bird, I would switch back to 2 low and if needed he would respond to that well. I just chalked it up to birds being a ton more distraction/incentive to blow off the stim.

[Brazosvalleyvizslas]

I picture Ray with a grin on his face as he holds the button down while giving the command, "ride the lightning". LOL

[Troy08er]

Thinking I have the 90 and use 3. Sometimes in the field on my GSP I'll have to hit the red button on 3, he can be a little hard headed. My EP I don't have to use that much and it's on 3.

[gonehuntin']

I generally run mine on 3 all of the time (Pro 100). I don't warn. If I issue a command and the dog disobeys, it gets the collar on 3. If it ignores that I roll em' with high.

There is NO excuse for a dog to ignore a command other than sloppiness in training. A command is a command.

When I break a dog out on the collar I vary the intensities from 2 or three right to high so the dog learns how to work at all levels. Pretty important step that most trainers neglect or skip.

In reality, I RARELY go past a level three. My one remaining dog is 8 now and this year she has the collar used on her once, I believe at level 3. There just is rarely the need if you've done your work and the dog has a strong working bond with you.

[cjuve]

I have the field 90 and it all depends on which dog is wearing it as to the level of stim. I have used the collar in the field exactly 2 times in the last 3 months, I do not think that I used it more than 3 times last year total running 3 different dogs. Like some others I use just enough stim on the first correction to get their attention, if they ignore it then it gets turned up! Keep in mind the dogs have been fully conditioned to the collar and know what I am asking, if they don't comply it is because they are ignoring me.

[RayGubernat]

I picture Ray with a grin on his face as he holds the button down while giving the command, "ride the lightning". LOL

Back in the day, when I had to go get a dog...which usually meant running it down hollering whoa(sometimes whoa you SOB) at it at the same time...most folks who witnessed that thought I was a little nuts. When I caught up to the dog and proceeded to stretch its ears...they were pretty sure. If one were to do precisely that in certain company these days, there might well be a uniformed officer knocking at the front door in one's future.

Now, since all I do is stand there and press a button...they ain't so sure.... I know... and the dog knows...that is all that matters.

The funny thing with all of this is when I look back over my time with one particular dog, I can't recall the last time I actually used used the collar and she is going on nine, which is pretty old for a pointer. She is a FC having won all her points in GSP club sponsored OAA stakes against predominantly GSP's. You know she had to win it...and win it hard to take first place...several times. This dog is tough as a boot, has AF all age champions shot through her pedigree and can run with anything out there, but absolutely loves to hunt and hunt with me.

During her training, I seem to remember using the collar on 3, fairly early on in her training, but that is about all. most times a nick a 1 or 2 was quite sufficient.

If you do it right, using stepwise and incremental training, and you get the timing of initial corrections down, there should be no need, other than trashbreaking to use high levels of stim on a bird dog. It is boring, repetitive , time consuming work that is absolutely unglamorous and not sexy at all, but the patient, thorough introduction of concepts in the yard pays HUGE dividends and makes what comes after sooooo much easier on the dog.

Do what you need to do to get compiance...no more, but no less. The training you do BEFORE you strap on the e-collar is far, far more important, IMO.

RayG