SportDog TEK First Glance

I got my Sportdog TEK and so far after a morning of playing around with it I really like it. First off I want to put it out there that this unit seems to be built as an ecollar first and a tracking unit second. What I mean by that is, while it uses gps technology to track your dog it is not a gps like the Garmin is and if that is what you want, you’re not going to be happy with the Sportdog. This is a dog tool only. It is really easy to navigate through and set up. You almost don’t need to read the manual. If you have any sort of experience using a gps or a tool like this you will figure it out fast. Now there are options that I have not even tried yet but to set up a dog profile, get the ecollar tuned in and the gps working is a no brainer. Sportdog did a really good job designing an easy to use interface.

Ecollar
The Ecollar is a very robust. I was able to fine tune the stimulation for each of my dogs. Rip is ultra sensitive and I have her set on Low with her at level 3. Louie is set to Mid and also on level 3. It gives you the option to dial it in even more which I think I will do with Rip as the jump from 2 to 3 is quite the jump; I think I could find a perfect stimulation between them. Yes, it gives you that option. I love how many options it has. It also gives many stimulation option, consistent, momentary, rising, tone, and vibrate. I am very impressed with the ecollar.

The actual ecollar itself is pretty big. I was a little worried because Rip is so small and it does look pretty bulky on her but not much more than the 2 collars (tracker & TT) I had strapped to her last year. The strap is thick, I mean thick! And will last for many seasons. I do not love the charging ports but thought I would put some electrical tape over them to protect the rubber from being ripped off.

Tracking/GPS
This aspect of the unit is not like the Garmin at all. It does exactly what it says it does and tells you where your dog is and which direction they are moving. It updates pretty good, but not as fast as I would like. I would say its about 5-10 seconds. Not the 2.5 that it says. I took Louie out for a run at the park with it. He took a big cast and it said he was 160 yards out, he turned and headed east, which it updated pretty quickly then he turned and headed full speed back towards me. He was about 15 feet from me and it still said he was 100 yards out, then 80, 50, and then 10. It seemed slow to me. A dog can really move fast. The point alert it not real loud but the vibrate helps you notice, I like that is has both. Overall the verdict is still out but if it works in the field like it did at the park I will be happy. I also have it set up to stimulation on the tracking screen, which is really nice. No toggling through back and forth to correct the dog just one button and the dog is corrected.

Overall first impressions are: Ecollar portion is great, GPS is nice and works like it should but the update rate was not as fast as I hope. The unit is built very well, and the design is awesome and super easy to set up and use. I still need to do some real world testing but from the little use so far I am pleased.