I work for the humane society as a dog trainer and it gives me the opportunity to work with a variety of dogs and temperaments. The dogs love it when I come because they get out of their cages and play and work outside.

This is the second review of the Dogtra brand of electronic training collars.

This Dogtra 200NCP Gold is the second collar in their line and claims to be the best selling collar year after year. This is probably because it’s still reasonably priced, small in size but offers a few extra perks that the base model doesn’t.

The 200 model has the same receiver as the 175 model, however the transmitter is a bit more ergonomic for the hand. The base case is rounded on the edges instead of the square hard case on the starter model. It is slightly taller but slimmer in width. There are three buttons on the transmitter, the nick, constant, and a vibrate-only button. This has a similar feel to your cell phone vibrating and gives the dog a chance to feel a sensation and not a static shock and make a decision to correct the behavior.

The 200 model also offers a slightly longer distance range at ½ mile and the collar is also waterproof. The transmitter is still only waterproof, but in case it’s raining and you get a few drops on it, the collar should be fine. You don’t want to go out into a lake and submerge the transmitter, as you’ll probably run into trouble.

I used this to train a dog named Henry for the humane society. Henry was a bloodhound mix who was always very interested in smells when he was out and needed to learn to focus if he wanted to be adopted. He also needed a job when he was away so she could focus her nose and his efforts on some task at hand. Having the range extended was great as I was able to start tracking work with it. He worked with food as his main source of scent and with the use of a solitary line initially and this collar I was able to give him the freedom to work away from me knowing that I could have the control to bring him back to me if he walked away. That’s the beauty of these electronic collars. They’re wireless, which means you can ultimately get to the point where you don’t need a leash attached to your dog, but have a way to get them to refocus on you if need be.