Never hear about it but do people enforce the "whoa" command with an e-collar?  If your dog takes off after the flush do you shock him?  OR does that discourage the predator instinct?

I've never used one of those collars.  My dog was trained to respond to whistle, voice and hand commands.  I worked with him at least twice a day and never treated him like a 'pet'.  He was my hunting partner.

I would strongly advise you not use an electric-shock collar on
a bird dog....You might discourage him from hunting birds altogether
should the dog relate the shock to the discovery of birds...

A great deal of patience is need by the trainer on that issue....
When raising and hunting with bird dogs with my Dad as a kid, we always
trained that problem out of dogs using pen raised quail and a collar with'
a lengthy rope and using the command Easy (eeeezzzzeeeeeeeeee) drawn
out and low toned...When the dog lunge's in to the bird from point,
restrain him with a light jerk on your command (eeeezzzzzeeeee)....It'll
take time so when he gets the message and responds to your command
reward him, pet him and let him know that's what you want....Then when
your in the field he'll relate to the command when he's in that trance...

Some bird hunter/dog trainers might use other methods, I dunno, but
I doubt using a shock-collar would be one of them...Now on other types
of hunting dogs, coon-dogs, bear-dogs, beagles and such, shock-collars
are used with some success to stop dogs from running deer...but, bird
dogs are different...you can mess a bird-dog up with a shock-collar......

Unfortunately, some dogs cannot be broke from that problem......BH51.......

Hmmmm........After reading my post, I probably should have mentioned
that when we train the long-leash method, and, say the dog continues to
jump bird or, break point we do not pet or reward the dog but rather
put the dog up in his pen and ignore him for a while or until the next
training session...They thrive on attention and this hurts their feelings...

They seem to seek that attention and hopefully will strive to find a way
to get it...and, by all means, Be Patient....

If'n you got a dog that can find birds...you got something...breaking one
from jumping birds can be trained into them most of the time......

Now we never trained dogs to flush birds up on command...We, ourselves
would walk through our dogs while they're locked-up and flush them up...

That's the way we did it....I hope I've been of some help.................BH51....

I've never seen e collars used on bird dogs either.
 Coon and bear dogs YES...bird dogs no and for the reasons mentioned.  And I think they are too sophisticated for a shocking collar..
 
I've used a shocking collar on a bear dog myself.  It's like you hit them in the back of the head with a "hammer".  Even on a bear, coon dog you have to be very careful and be sure they are running something besides a bear or coon.
 
It's called "running trash".  And the shocking collar stops them dead in their tracks.  Takes a few times to get them organized in their smelling...but they do get organized..:smiley:
 
Is a tracking collar ever used on a bird dog?  Never seen one and just wondering.

All e-collar manufacturers make a line of collars specifically for bird dogs and even more specifially for upland/pointing dogs.  So I do know that these collars are used extensively on bird dogs with no ill effects.  I was focusing more on the whoa command in my question.

I've used "stay" I guess that's pretty much like "whoa". :)
 
My shocking collar had number and degrees of shock.  
I would suppose if you were going to use a shocking collar on a Bird Dog I would use the lowest number.
 
If my young bear dog would not "stay" when I wanted him to stay I sent a little buzz to the back of his head.  A few little buzzes and he was ready to stay when I said "stay".
 
I'm not a bird hunter except dove and a few quail from time to time.  Was hunting with a Pheasant hunter who used a dog and he used "voice" commands.
 
Never used a shocking collar.  And a very well trained Pointer.