I'm trying to keep the collar on my dog from the time when he's release from his crate till he's put back in at night to sleep. Someone mentioned that it should be moved to another position every two hours to prevent skin irratation. Is it around that time frame or can it be left in one position longer? I'm usually gone for 4-6 hours for work and he's left in the crate while i'm gone. Should I have it taken off while then or leave it on so he would get use to it? Oh and how snug is snug when it comes to tightening the collar? I have a labrador retreiver and it seem like if I tighten the collar to the point where the unit would not be moving around or slip down his neck, he looks uncomfortable and maybe a little hard to breath when his head is at certain position. Is there like a one finger rule or anything like that? thanks if you can answer all these question.

I don't move my dog's ecollar while she's wearing it. It's snug, but it still moves around a little bit on its own if she scratches or shakes her head or something. She wears hers from 7:45am until 10:00pm, and before I got married, she stayed outside in an invisible fence and wore the collar 24/7 and never had a problem (though I don't recommend letting your dog wear the ecollar for that long - it was a necessary evil for me).

The ecollar should fit about like the prong - it should be snug enough so that it doesn't slide down the dog's neck, but not so snug that it causes breathing problems. I can fit one finger underneath the strap of my dog's ecollar when she's wearing it, but I have very small fingers (my wedding ring is a size 4 or 4.5).

Hmm... I think i'm having some trouble. I'm starting to notice that there are some callus around his neck. Is it from having the collar on him too tight? I have a labrador so I guess it's consider long hair. If I have it too loose, the collar would be moved around or doesnt seem like it's contacting his skin.

You shouldn't have the collar on so tight that he seems uncomfortable or is having breathing trouble in certain positions. It should spin a little if they scratch or are being very active, but it shouldn't slide down the neck. You can always make a new hole in the collar in between 2 existing holes, if you can't get the right fit.

If there are calluses developing, then I would leave the e-collar off while you're at work so that they can heal. (A little antibiotic ointment on them wouldn't hurt either.) When you have the e-collar on him, I would rotate its position every couple of hours and keep the contact points off of the callused area.

It could be that the collar is too tight. It could be that you're not moving its position often enough. Or, it could just be that your dog has sensitive skin. You're going to have to play around with it for a while to figure out which one is the issue.

For the most part, sores on the dog's neck are caused by the collar either being too loose so that it moves around too much and causes irritation through friction or left on too long so the contact points wear holes in the dog's skin through friction and pressure.

Moving the box around to a different part of the dogs neck can be done every couple of hours, I usually try for four and often get busy and forget completely.

If you put the Ecollar on and the dog starts to wheeze, it's a bit too tight. Loosen it up at least two notches.

Dogtra has come out with a thingy called a 24 hour contact pad and I've got a couple of them that I'm testing. You can see them at Donn Yarnall's site, donnyarnall.net. They replace the two contact points with a pad that has a central contact point and then six smaller ones in a circle around it. It spreads the pressure out over a much larger area than do the pair of standard contact points. Supposedly it doesn't need to make good contact with the dog's skin as do the contact points. When I get done testing them I'll write up a report to the list.

Lou,

Any word on how the Surface Conductor Grid is working? I am thinking of buying one. I have an Aussie so his coat is long and it is hard to get good contact at times, this may solve my problem.

Thanks!

Marc

Marc the results are looking pretty good. I started out by testing it on myself to feel how the stim measured up to the standard setup, contact points. At all settings the stim felt a bit more intense with the grid than with the contact points. Perhaps 3-4 marks higher. This means that you'll be using a slightly lower working level. If you go from the contact points to the grid, be sure and find the dog's working level as if it had never been done before.

When using the contact points I've always recommended that the collar be quite snug on the dogs neck so that the contact points make "intimate" contact with the skin. I've said that after the strap is tightened that you grasp the box, press in towards the center of the dog's neck and "wiggle" the box. Think of using the contact points to part the hair so they rest on the skin. This isn't necessary with the grid. Just put it on, pull the strap so it's snug and go. I tried putting the Ecollar on so that it wasn't snug but got poor results. It still needs to be snug but there's no worry about the contact points being against the skin. The old warning applies, if your dog starts wheezing when you tighten the strap, it's too tight.

Both of my dogs are GSD's with fairly thick coats. They're not brushed as often as is ideal so their undercoat is pretty thick, but I live in Southern California, where it's pretty hot so their undercoat doesn't get as thick as if we lived in more northern climes.

In a completely non-scientific test I brushed one of my dogs, getting a heavy supply of top coat and undercoat. I placed the mat of hair, about 1/4" thick, on my leg and placed the Ecollar box on top of it. I couldn't discern any difference between the feeling of the stim with the grid directly against my skin and with the fur in between the grid and my leg. I tried the same thing with the contact points. With the fur in place stim wasn't getting through.

Twice I've left an Ecollar on a dog for too long and caused sores that got infected. I was working tons of overtime during local emergencies and just forgot. I can only claim stupidity as a defense. This simply can't happen with the grid. Nothing touches the dog's skin. The grid rests atop the dog's fur and spreads the pressure out over a large area. There's nothing making contact of any kind against the skin.

I can't discern any different response from the dogs between the contact points and the grid, keeping in mind that the stim level needs to be lowered a bit with the grid and so I'm going to keep them on all my collars. If I used an Invisible Fence where the dog wore the collar 24/7 I'd have them for sure. For people who have contact problems because their dogs have an exceptionally thick coat, I'd recommend them.

If you decide to get one be aware there are some older versions out there that don't work nearly as well as the later ones. The older versions don't have the raised area around the six gold tips. They're much flatter than the new ones. They're easy to tell apart and you can see a photo of the newest ones at

http://www.donnyarnall.net/store/mainpage2.htm

I'd be interested in hearing how others perceive this device.

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I'd be interested in hearing how others perceive this device.

I'm ordering one today.... I'll let you know!! I love my e-collar and It's corrected a bunch of problems that have arisen with my work dog..... but bad contact with the unit has plagued me, this may be a better answer than the longer contact points.

Lou,
Which model are you using for the test? I'm curious if the grid will overcome the unreliability of the lowwwwww-level stim in the 200 without doing the mod.

I'm ordering a grid because I have a GSD I'm working and even with 1" electrodes, stim is not consistent due to the slenderness of the neck.

Thanks Lou, I believe I will be purchasing one of those!