More TEK Info & Gun Dog Supply

OK I have had the TEK for a while now and it has been a bit of a roller coaster. Some days I love it, other days I am ready to get a garmin. My first handheld has serious issues and stopped getting a gps lock, or it would take a good 40 minutes for it to get a lock. So SportDog sent me a new one free of charge. BTW they have been amazing to work with so has Steve Snell at GDS where I orded the TEK from. The new handheld has no issue with GPS but it loses communication with the collar all the time and its average communication rate is around 30-40 seconds. I am not very happy. I dropped Steve at GDS an email about the comm issue and he is sending me out a brand new unit. I will never buy from another online store again. Steve has been great. I'm excited to get the new unit and put it to work the season is fast approaching

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.

Spring Training

This spring was a lot of fun I found a great little grouse honey hole and was able to make it out for chukar runs. I took a few videos but none really turned out well the one I posted is about 7000ft and both dogs were holding the grouse. If you listen you can hear the bird and then Rips bell and Louie yelp in excitment.

The pointer in the pics really threw it down and taught Rip a lot. She is starting to come along more every run. Louie also had some great grouse finds and solid points all in all it was a great spring training year. Now the birds are all nesting so I leave them alone for the next few months.

Been crazy around here, finishing up school and trying find the time to take the dogs out. I get them out regularly but not as often as I would like. Louie is doing really good, starting to figure his birds and this spring has become deadly on pheasant. Rip is a running SOB. I was scared at first thinking that she was almost to much dog for me, but the more I work her and build a relationship the easier she handles. I did pick up a Tracker system in case I do lose her. The Tracker is fun to use takes a bit if playing with but I am getting it figured out. I am learning that the only thing holding her back from being a really great dog is me and my lack of experience. So I may send her to a pro this summer to mold her into all that she can be.

It is getting backpacking time and my dad has started to call me everyday about ideas of where to go, what days to go and what to eat. He always does around this time of year. I love the talks because I am thinking about the same things. This years trip were going to one of our old haunts which I have always loved. There is a really nice fly fishing stream that ill get to play on with my new flyrod.

More stuff from this season

Rips First Birds

Rip is going on 4 1/2 months and I have been so busy I haven't been able to do a bird intro until this weekend. I was not sure what to expect but I figured whatever happens ill make it fun and let her just do what she does. So I went and planted some pigeons and let her at um, no check cord no nothing this is just all pure instinct and fun. Needless to say she brought the noise and laid down solid points on her first birds.

One of her points of the day.

She held long enough for Jill to snap of few.

I had to kick the bird up to get it to fly....look how graceful I am!! Rip looks cool.

And she is off to the races

I got a few more pigeons that I will use to finish up her gun intro and after that she is on a diet of wild birds only!!!

Grouse

Grouse hunting started a few weeks ago we have made it out a few times and had some success. This year because we seems to have a good hatch and I have seen a lot of birds. Louie seems to finally be figuring these tricky buggers out.

Louie at the Basin, We had a good hunt and managed to bag one bird. I missed a big blue which would have been awesome. The Basin is really steep and when the blue got up I was so out of breath I could barely mount my gun. So we droped down into a canyon which held some Ruffies.

Ruffed Grouse

We have also been hunting The Corral which is one of my standard coverts that is a ton of fun to hunt. This year I have been hunting it a little different then years past and have been having success getting into birds. Last sabbath I was able to put two birds to rest, the grouse gods were good to me. I manage to get up about 5 flushes that day and connect on 2, not bad for me.