Can a e-collar be used in the same circumstance that a bark collar would be?

I think what you mean is if an e-collar can be used to control barking. If thats what you mean then the answer is yes. But you would have to give the correction every time you hear your dog bark. Bark collars do that themselves.

I hope that is what you meant to ask.

How is the Innotek brand?

I have used the Innotek brand, but not for bark collars. I've used their in-ground fencing system and it worked until my older GSD thought it was worth the pain to catch the squirrel. It was set on the highest correction level too. I don't have experience with their e-collars.

I have the ADV-300 Innotek e-collar, it works fine for my dog, and it works great on my friends great dane (she ignores the e-collar unless it's set to maximum, but after a short while she only needed the correction tone so now you just beep her n she comes running when she doesn't come on command). I have heard the range isn't even half the 300 yards advertised, but my dog will never be that far away from me so it's not a big deal. The ADV-300 has stim levels 1-7, my dog responds very well on 2 for basic training, 3 when he's a lil more focused on disobeying me, and 5 or 6 if I'm trying to snap him out of his fixation on another dog. I would say I have a somewhat soft dog, although sometimes I question this based on the amount of correction it takes to get him away from something he's really interested in. There have been times where a level 7 stim on continuous had to be used and he only listened then because his hind leg started twitching in the "trying to scratch my neck" motion so he had to sit down n scratch at the e-collar.

I don't know what would make other brands better than the Innotek - perhaps higher stim levels that I would never need anyway, or range, or a fancier looking collar than the blue square box.

With the Innotek, I had to order special "fur penetrating" probes because the fur around my dog's neck is so thick - even with the new probes, the e-collar won't make proper contact until he shakes himself out (which he does automatically when I put a collar on him).

Innotek collars are junk. With exception. I have never had a problem with innotek bark collars, they have worked very well and reliably for me, and I bought the cheapy one for like 50 dollars.

On the other hand, I bought thier trainer for 350 dollars, and it was total garbage. Yes! the range does matter even if you think you won't use it. The range decreases in heavily obstructed areas vs. wide open spaces. If you ever want to train send aways or take your dog in the woods camping or whatever, the innoteks are not reliable. Distance is important, if your collar doesn't have good distance you are limited on what you can do with it. They pride themselves on thier "internal anttena" system, and it sucks. The range issues and stray signals are not worth having a remote that has no antenna.

Another problem I had was, the collar was picking up stray signals periodically zapping my dog, this made training very, VERY confusing for a while. It took me a while to figure out what was going on..then I changed the setting to make a noise when it "stimmed" and realized this thing was going off when it wasn't supposed to.

ANOTHER PROBLEM is those cheap remotes they come with, you know, the litte sqaure box with the flat buttons? Those flat buttons wear out very quickly even with conservative use.

Most of thier collars are not water proof either. Which means if you have a stubborn lab who likes to swim, or you want to train in the rain, You can't. I used to think, why would I need a ecollar on my dog when he's swimming anyway?, Untill he swam to the other side of the lake and it took me over an HOUR to get him out of the water!

Any of the collars Ed sells would be suitable, think about your needs and select a collar ABOVE what you think your needs are. You will be much happier in the long run. In addition, you won't spend as much as you would on an innotek. Ed has a Dogtra for around 200, this would be just fine for most people's needs. I don't know if Ed carries them, but some even have the "no-bark" feature built in that you can turn on and off.
I own a DTsystems collar now and I am extremely pleased with it. The power output is also much higher than the innotek I had before. Not that you always need it,..but it's nice to know its there.

Ok..back to your origianal question <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> If barking is your major and only issue you want to work on, just buy a bark collar. They are extremely effective and all you have to do is put it on the dog, no skill is needed. If you want to fix the barking AND do some training, I suggest doing your homework on a ecollar AND, learn how to use one properly.

If you go with the bark collar, when the dog is wearing it and he barks, make sure you give him a command to stop barking at that moment, this will teach him the command to stop barking when he is not wearing the collar.

I used the innotek bark collar and it was ok. I prefer the version with rechargeable batteries. The bark collar uses a batterie half penlite size. They are hard to get and always empty when you need the collar.

 Quote:

Yes! the range does matter even if you think you won't use it. The range decreases in heavily obstructed areas vs. wide open spaces. If you ever want to train send aways or take your dog in the woods camping or whatever, the innoteks are not reliable.

Any of the collars Ed sells would be suitable

Oh how I WISH I could take my dog camping... I would be ecstatic if I could take my dog camping! You have no idea how depressing it is going camping out in the open with all that fresh air and running space, and having to leave my dog with my parents because Florida state parks don't allow you to camp with your dog unless you go to the parks far away from me that don't have real bathrooms (there's always young kids camping with us so it makes it 100x easier when its a "nice" campground with restrooms and such).

I understand your point though, and I have a fingernail dent in the stupid remote - I'm not saying its the best collar - I'm just saying that for what I do with my dog, it's fine. He's never out of my sight, he doesn't run off more than 30-40ft away from me, n now that he's trained, he doesn't run off trying to make me chase him when he's off leash <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> And supposedly the one I have is waterproof.

Now, given the opportunity to buy a better e-collar, knowing more about them now, sure I'd probably go for a Dogtra, I hear alot about them... but so far my Innotek hasn't given me any reason's to go out and buy a different one, so if cost is a big factor (can get em for $140-150 some places) and you're only using the e-collar to the extent that I am, its fine.

And Ed sells the Innotek e-collar that I have... so maybe you mean "Any, except the Innotek" hehe.
http://www.leerburg.com/adv-300.htm