Mills, I keep hunting and training aids separate. I train my setter with the Garmin 550 (best and easiest to use ecollar in the industry) and use a bell and Astro 320 GPS to hunt and in field trials. My grandfather taught me that corrections should only be made while training and not when hunting. Just my opinion.

I hope to never have to use the shock function when hunting and would only do so if the dog got near a road or started chasing a wild hog. Actually, if it were not for those two concerns, I would only be interested in the GPS. The shock collar that died served its purpose in teaching the here command. I have had to use the vibrate a few times when he got distracted and excited by something and stopped listening to commands

Collar conditioning
 

An ecollar is a great tool for collar conditioning a dog. Sounds like your dog is not quite there yet. To collar condition a dog I use a whistle, the command (here, quarter, whoa, etc.) and slight continuous stimulation.. After a few or more sessions the collar comes off and the dog responds to the command and/or whistle that is associated to what he's suppose to do regardless of the distraction (boar, deer, turkey, fast moving water or a road). I find this part of dog training fascinating as it makes the dog/handler bond stronger.

He is very close to there. He is naturally high spirited which is a plus mostly with some drawbacks.

It's rare for me to use the stimulus (shock) function but it does have it's purposes. Daisy got on a deer and a loud whoa didn't do anything but when I combined whoa and a zap that got her attention and she never chased another deer.

Mills,

I rarely use any stimulation, and only to help with situations like chasing deer, or if they are about to encounter a porcupine or skunk. Once they understand the commands, I associate them with both the collar tone function and the whistle. This way I can communicate with them via two means, and using the tone, there is no noise to spook game. I "beep" them, they look back or turn, and I can give them hand signals. It's great in the grouse woods, and when I run my dogs as a brace when quail hunting (using the tone, I can communicate with just one dog, whereas when I use the whistle, they both will respond).

Thanks for all the recommendations and advice. Even though I grew up with bird dogs, having my own now is very much a work in progress.

Sherwood stayed at a pet resort this weekend while we went to the Braves game. The owner said he had enough energy for 20 dogs.

Just another fine "youngster" for you to acculturate to the upland life! Enjoy.

Ike is high energy also. He rough houses with Duke constantly. If Sherwood is a little hard headed you might see a big difference when he has the collar on. Daisy was bullheaded and Ike is to to some degree. When the collar goes on they seem to mellow out and mind much much better. The collar is a tool not a solution.

I was worried about that but he responds pretty well without the collar too.