I have an Innotek ADV-300, yes I know alotta people arent Innotek fans. My question is:

If you are supposed to train on low-stim, does it matter which collar you use? Because my dog has developed an immunity to the e-collar, this morning he found a small piece of dried up poop from a neighbors dog, he was too interested in picking it up in his mouth to listen to my calls and ignored a level 7 (maximum) continuous stim (had to work my way up there because he ignored everything entirely). I know it's making contact because I can see his muscle vibrate n after 2 seconds he'll sit down and scratch at his neck instead of coming to me (yes he knows listening turns off stim but he still chooses to be more interested in the poop he found than my command).

Is this just my dogs immunity to the stim feeling, or is it the brand of e-collar? Level 7 on the Innotek ADV-300 is strong enough to where I can't put it on myself on continuous and I haven't found anyone that could. I wouldn't say I have a particularly hard dog, I always thought of him as more of a softer (not entirely soft, just softer) dog.

I don't quite see how changing to a different brand e-collar might help though, because he is getting the stim and I don't want to totally electrocute him, but when he's totally focused on something else he won't snap out of it. When I first got the e-collar it was awesome, he listened perfect, if he was truly taken by surprise he'd jump up when you hit the stim wondering "what was that!" even on a low level, now, nothin... except for scratching his neck if you stim him long enough.

I have an ADV-1000 innotek collar and I worry about it's reliability, I just feel like it does not always work, I have also had problems keeping the reciver and transmitter on the same frequency. A couple of things to try, first make sure you are using the right legnth posts on the collar. Secound put some vasolien on the posts. Third trim down or shave a contact spot on the dogs neck. Last give up and order a Tritronics or Dogtra... I'm too cheap to buy a new one right now but I would not but another Innotek.

I had to order their special fur penetrating prongs, basically same length as the long prongs that come with the unit but has thin pointy tips on the end thats supposed to go thru thick fur.

I may look into a Dogtra collar at a place that has a good return policy, if I notice that it works alot better i'll sell the Innotek.

Mike there are two problems that I see here. One is that, as has been said, the reliability of Innotek isn't always the best. While it may be giving a stim, it may not be increasing the level of stim reliably as you turn it up. But the second is the way that it increases the stim level. It takes a moment to go from one level to the next. Each time you increase the level the dog has a moment to "ready himself" for the next stim. He's getting himself mentally ready for the increase. Chances are if you could increase the level of stim more quickly, he couldn't do this.

Judging by your description of how he responds to the Ecollar I'd say that either you're not using my method or you haven't spent enough time using my method to lay a good foundation. Staying low on the stim level only works if you teach the dog how to shut off the stim. Also, are you using nick, tap, or continuous for this work?

Many Dogtra dealers will give you a full refund, less shipping, if you return the Ecollar within 30 days.

If we are having an "official" training session, like I take him out specifically to work on training, he does awesome, he understands the e-collar concept n his performance is flawless. If I let him out to go potty and play for a few minutes and he finds something interesting in the grass, no amount of stim from the Innotek snaps him out of his distraction. It's like he knows it's playtime and thinks playtime means "I don't have to listen... I'll just scratch at the collar instead". I use continuous stim on Level 3 80% of the time, level 2 15% of the time and 5% of the time I just step it up to whatever level snaps him out of his behavior.

I've taken to use the prong collar more lately when there's other dogs around because the e-collar doesn't snap him out of his behavior once he's decided to bark at the other dog and become hectic. He's not aggressive to dogs once he's up close to em, he just wants to sniff them, but I'm trying to teach him not to pay attention to other dogs - when I first got the Innotek I was comfortable taking him out off-leash knowing he'd respond to stim if he broke his heel - now I have had to leash him more often because stim lost its effectiveness.