Chat
12-31-2019, 10:58 AM
We bought our collar direct from Garmin. It's the Alpha 100/TT model and it cost around $800 (yikes!). That's why it took us over two years to finally break down and get one. It's one of those things that has way more features than we need, but there's no good middle ground. Either the collars don't have all the features we want or they have way more features than we know what to do with. We got it almost a year ago and we started out by training Pluto to come to the beep tone during our daily walks. Once he was responding well to the beep tone, we started letting him loose with the collar unsupervised. I would randomly use the beep tone to call him to the house from time to time and when he showed up I'd give him a treat. However, any time he started running loose outside our property, his excitement tended to overwhelm his ability or desire to listen and I'd have to use the zap feature to force him to listen to the beeper. There were a few times when he started running loose with other dogs that I had to zap him at full strength and keep my finger on it for several seconds to get his attention. He has very thick hair and sometimes a very thick skull! There was a neighborhood LGD that kept coming over to our place and luring Pluto away from home. He quit coming around after he touched Pluto a few times while I had the zap button engaged! Pluto now knows he's not allowed to run off and play with other dogs. One time I zapped him in the act of attacking my neighbor's cattle dog on my neighbor's property! If my neighbor had seen that, he would have been well within his rights to shoot Pluto on the spot.
A cool thing that Pluto just learned in the last month is to wait near the house until I put his tracking collar on. Pluto used to try to sneak off before I could get his collar on, but I think he's finally realized that the collar is his ticket to freedom. This month we've had lots of Christmas things to go to, and when Phil and I are both gone for several hours we put Pluto on his runner chain since there's no one to watch him. Pluto has finally figured out that when he doesn't have his collar, it means he's probably going to be tied up for the day. A couple of weeks ago, Daisy took off running after something in the woods, but Pluto hovered around the house whining. I went out to put his collar on and he was wriggling so much in excitement I almost couldn't fasten it. As soon as it was on, he took off like a rocket into the woods. I was thrilled that he actually waited for me to get his collar before disappearing. I watched on the tracker while he ran just past the edge of our property and then brought himself back home before I had to recall him.
A cool thing that Pluto just learned in the last month is to wait near the house until I put his tracking collar on. Pluto used to try to sneak off before I could get his collar on, but I think he's finally realized that the collar is his ticket to freedom. This month we've had lots of Christmas things to go to, and when Phil and I are both gone for several hours we put Pluto on his runner chain since there's no one to watch him. Pluto has finally figured out that when he doesn't have his collar, it means he's probably going to be tied up for the day. A couple of weeks ago, Daisy took off running after something in the woods, but Pluto hovered around the house whining. I went out to put his collar on and he was wriggling so much in excitement I almost couldn't fasten it. As soon as it was on, he took off like a rocket into the woods. I was thrilled that he actually waited for me to get his collar before disappearing. I watched on the tracker while he ran just past the edge of our property and then brought himself back home before I had to recall him.