E Collar Training For Beginners: Acclimate to Vibration

Have you ever wondered what is the best way to acclimate your dog to an E collar? There are two main functions on most e collars and you need to decide which ones you will be using and in which order to introduce them to your dog. You need to think about the vibration function and the stim function. These are two very different things and are introduced differently and are used for different purposes.

Most E collars have a correction function, and a pager function. We prefer e collars that have a vibration function as opposed to beep for their pager. The main reason for that is there are a ton of things in everyday life that beep or chime so it can be confusing for your dog and the noise can be harder to hear in a loud environment.

Keep in mind, the first step when training your dog on the vibration function is to make sure your dog already knows the come command. We are firm believers that your dog needs to know everything before we start e collar training. We reinforce on an e collar, not teach. Trainers who teach with an e collar tend to scare dogs and turn them into robots. This is NOT how we do it. We introduce an e collar late in the training process in order to give your dog more freedom to be off leash in public.

To teach your dog to understand what the vibration function means is easy if you know how to do it right. We recommend using whatever motivates your dog. Some well timed treats and praise goes a long way here. Start off by making sure your dog is not fearful of the vibration. We typically will vibrate the collar near the dog, and if they respond well we will praise them. In cases where they are fearful, we will do the same process and heel them to teach them to relax. The next step once your dog shows no fear of the vibrate is to start as easy as possible from a short distance away. You want to pair the come command with the vibrate at the same time. If your dog shows any fear, reset with heel. Make sure you do a ton of repetitions and have fun!

The next step is adding more and more distance. If you are training your dog on the vibration function before ever using the stim function keep in mind that you need the correction level set to zero to prevent mistakes! If working in an unfenced area, you should be using a long line as a safety measure in case they run off.

Eventually we will work on using the vibration only, without saying come. As you can see in this video, it can be done in the first session, but it is not a race! Start off in short distances and eventually work further away. If your dog is struggling, go back to the beginning step of pairing the verbal come command with the vibrate.

If you have any questions please let us know!

Links to our socials!

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:04 Vibrate Acclimation
04:31 Things That Can Go Wrong/Mistakes People Make
05:53 Advancing: Vibrate Only
08:08 Use Of Treats
09:15 Closing Thoughts

[binmanblog]

I hope I can learn to use the E collar as well as Holly did. Thanks for the video

[allisoncole]

Thank you I am so thankful we found your videos! Watching them on airplay today

[VOMom]

I'd like to have this collar for hiking and off leash walking for the "come" command, but we also have an e-fence in our yard. How do i distinguish the difference between the 2 collars? One is warning, one is "fun"???

[robinway]

I'm a beginning e collar uder I train my own dog and I know all the basics and more advanced things so how do I get my Boston Bull terrier to recall to the vibration on the e-collar? Help me

[markh]

Great video. My dog keeps jumping up on our table and kitchen units to eat food. I’ve bought an e-collar to try and stop it. Do you have any suggestions as to how I might use it to stop this behaviour? I was going to use it as a deterrent but I noticed from your video that you said not to do that and use it as a positive experience.

He is a 2 year old golden retriever.

Any help appreciated.
Thank you.
Mark

[Ducky]

if u vibrate do u let it vibrate once or keep it pressed untill the dog comes? same question but with the shock/stim function?

[samanthanesselroade]

When you train the vibration/come command, is it the only command you can teach them to associate with that buzz? For example, if I wanted to teach my dog to “place” at home, and “come” outside of it?

[NMD-oi]

Why we don't use vibration as a correction? My first intention was to use it as a correction and don't use stim but in exceptional situations (with proper acclimatization). I'd like to know the explication about this method :) Nice video!

[maganda]

How many feet should the long line be ? And is there one that you recommend? Love your videos 😊

[heeku_]

what about using the vibration collar for "hill" and get to a level of leash free dog walks?
is it a good use case?

[andreacgarcia]

How do I know how high to set the vibration? My puppy seems to fully ignore it or not notice it.

[secretagent]

It would be good if you could raise or give a signal when you are using the vibration so we know.

[stephanieparis]

Hi! I’ve been watching Tom Davis videos to understand how to use the ecollar and his method confuses me a little because he holds the stim button (at a low level) and gives the dog a command, but I feel like this still relies on the handler being close to the dog to give the command. I was looking for other methods of using the dogtra 280c and found your videos. Pairing the pager function with one specific command all the time makes more sense to me. However I also feel like I would like the ecollar to be able to communicate multiple things. For example, come is obviously a very important use of the ecollar, but what if I wanted to use heel instead so we could continue our hike? Could I use one tap of the pager means come and two taps means heel? Do you think that would work?

[antoniosantonios]

So if it shouldn't be a correction, how about if the k9 is doing some bad (damaging in house property) eg biting a table or couch, can't we use the vibration to deter and create a distraction so they stop damaging?

[OHSloopyIO]

What about the NO command. Do you give command at the same time you issue the vibration ?

[abigailyeck]

What if you do accidentally start using the e collar with the pager as a correction for the first training session. Is it possible to switch to a positive or would that be to confusing for the dog?

[nancydegeorge]

Hello. I have a rescue dog who was only used for breeding. She has bad leash reactivity with dogs and people and motorbikes. Any thoughts on e collar training for reactivity please?

[sethpierce]

Would i be a bad dog owner if i wanted to use the vibration to stop barking while im gone?

[typelife]

Do you give the dog a chance to come before using vibrate or stim first or use it anyway as you say come ?

[jamesrusso]

Can this be safely used to help correct a dogs behavior who is too jumpy and barks at guests? With positive reinforcement only somehow? Or are these never used for corrective purposes? We wanted vibration only no shock to help with our large breed