When to introduce an e-collar…

A question that we hear fairly often is when to introduce the e-collar to your training method.

Quite simply, it's not necessarily when per se, it's how you do it when your dog is able to understand the commands and is very proficient in responding to those commands.

Then it’s a good time to start introducing the e-collar. If your dog truly doesn't understand what's expected of him or her, then introduction of the e-collar would be futile, because they don't know what to do. They don't know how to respond to the stimulus when you start applying pressure by pushing the e-collar buttons.

It's important to lay your groundwork. 

First example is using a check cord while you're giving the command “here" whatever that command may be. Typically, I like to use the, “Here” command in conjunction with the e-collar and the check cord so that they have an idea of how to respond to the stimulus.

See an example with Rush below…

Hopefully that gives you an idea on how to start to introduce the e-collar into your training.