Start in an area with low level distractions. Make sure your collar and remote are both turned on, and that the collar is properly fitted to your dog. The metal prongs on the e-collar should be making steady contact with your dog’s skin.
Set your remote to the lowest stimulation level possible and tap the stim button once. If there is no visible reaction, increase the stim level and try again. If you are using an Educator Technologies Collar, feel free to jump up 2-4 levels at a time (with 100 different setting, there isn’t much difference between 1 and 2 or 9 and 10).
Stop at the first sign of a reaction from your dog. This should be a SUBTLE sign. If you are unsure if you want a reaction or not, try again at the same level. If you have the collar at a level that causes your dog to flinch or jump, it is too high.
Whatever level you ended at is your dog’s current working level on the e-collar. As the dog gets more accustomed to working with and responding to the e-collar, they may get more sensitive to it. Don’t get too attached to this working level as it will likely change as the dog gets more experience with this work.
Check out this video of Lemon’s finding her working level. We had a “false positive” at first because I was using the sound box and she looked at the beeping. We moved further away from the sound to reduce that effect. When we got to level six she looked up at me. She is rather attentive to begin with so I repeated a level six and she looked to the side. Two indications in a row, so her initial working level is six.
Here is another video of Olive finding her working level on the E-collar. Her response is a little harder to see because she is also sniffing and interacting with the environment a bit. You have to look closely to see, but the first time I suspect a reaction, she turns back towards me, and the second time she picks her head up sharply after the collar goes off.
We ended this video with her working level being at 13, however quickly after starting training she was responding too intensely to that level and her working level ended up being an 8. That is not uncommon – in the beginning stages the e-collar is not that noticeable and because it doesn’t mean anything to them yet, they ignore it initially and hope it goes away.