To Lou,I noticed you use continuos on the e-collar and he stops the electric himself by complying.The fsaster he does it the faster the electric disappears.Doesnt the dog still know that its you thats administering the electric?Im trying to make sense of which method is better and why

I don't think that the dog knows that I'm the one pushing the button. I think he makes the association with his own behavior and he thinks that that's what starts and stops the stim.

I'm not sure what you mean when you ask "which method is better and why?" Are you referring to high v. low stim? Continuous v. nick or tap mode? Or are you talking about something else entirely?

I was referring to continuous over tap method.My dog trainer taught me the tap method but he said that the dog knows its me from seeing the remote and he will realize that it wont happen when the collar is not on.I just want to make my own decision after hearing youre comments

I don't think "seeing the remote" has that much to do with the dog knowing where the correction came from. If you wave the remote in front of his face everytime you push the button, sure, he will make an association.

You have to take steps to prevent the dog from becoming collar-wise. I do this my own way, maybe the pro's have some good proven advice for you.

I made a big mistake with one of my dogs early on. I only put the collar on him when he was being bad, he figured it out real quick and I lost all my authority when he didn't have that collar on. Any advice from the pro's how to fix this problem? How do I undo a collar-wise dog.

My other dog is fine. Since I learned after the fact how to prevent the dog from becoming collar-wise.

Any tips to undo my error though? I am currently just making him wear the collar for 12 hours, lots of play time, even training, but I don't use the stim.

There are a couple of problems I see with the tap method. First of all most people who use that method use very high levels of stim. Because of the pain involved, the first thing that happens is that all behavior is suppressed. Next the dog is shown that ONLY ONE behavior makes the pain stop. So those people get behavioral results even though the method has shortcomings.

This comment really isn't a problem but a clarification as to how the tap method came to exist. There are those people, usually newcomers to Ecollars, who think that this method of using the tool was invented by one trainer, in Nevada, a few years ago. In reality it was invented over 15 years ago, when the major maker of Ecollars in the US started putting out defective units that wouldn't stay on, even on the continuous setting. They'd simply shut off after random intervals. Users of Ecollars then, started tapping on the button. The Ecollar would give a short stim but wouldn't stay on continuously. So we worked around the problem It's long since been fixed but now revisionists want to believe that it was purposefully invented and recently.

The real problem with the tap is one of timing. You know that the closer that a reward comes (in time) to the act that it's supposed to reward, the better the learning. If it's more than three seconds after the behavior there may not be any reward perceived by the dog at all. In Ecollar training (absent praise) the reward come from stopping the discomfort that the Ecollar is giving. Try this, tell a friend to tell you when you've stopped tapping on his shoulder. You'll find that it may take him two seconds to let you know. Now rest your hand lightly on his shoulder and tell him to tell you when you remove it. He'll know immediately. Because the tap starts - stops - starts - stops and you never know when it's going to REALLY stop, the reward that comes from it's stopping is delayed because you're waiting for it to start again. When the continuous shuts off, you know it immediately.

As far as the dog knowing that it's you pushing the button, some people make a big show of pushing the button and so the dog comes to associate their hand motion with the stim. That may only take a few reps before the dog knows it. It's a flaw one that's easily avoided but one that's difficult to correct. Hold the transmitter (TX) in your "other hand." Put the hand holding the TX into a large pocket so you can push the button where he can't even see the TX. If you have gotten into the habit of making a hand motion as you press the button, practice making that same motion over and over without pressing the button.

Having him wear the Ecollar all day is good and it will help with the "collar-wise" problem. But unless you're competing and wearing of tool in the ring is prohibited by the rules, why do you need to take it off?

I have a dummy collar and rotate back and forth, exact duplicate in size and weight of real collar, just no internal parts.

Make it a habit of carrying or wearing the remote around with you most (or all) of the time, so that it just becomes a normal thing for your dog to see you with it.