I run both Garmin and Quicktrack on my dogs, each for a different reason.
Garmin - gives you a good idea of what your dogs are doing, and their relation to other dogs on the hunt. The reliability and battery really leave something to be desired.
Quicktrack - can't beat the old school reliability, and longevity of the batteries in the collar. If I have to leave the woods for an emergency, I won't be fighting the clock to locate my dogs worrying about the collar battery dying.
This past weekend we put 5 dogs on the ground, right off the bat 2 dogs were out 1.25 miles, in and out of range on the GPS...we had 3 other dogs hunting within a few hundred yards... If I only had Garmin collars on the dogs, I would have had to pickup the 3 dogs hunting nearby and haul ass to the other 2 dogs before the got too far out of range. Running both systems we were able to continue the hunt and let both sets of dogs work out tracks. One of the dogs that had rolled out came back in, the other did not. We kept hunting with the 4 dogs nearby. In time, the Garmin dropped signal at 3 miles on the one dog, with no need to be concerned as he still had a radio collar on him. After a while, the group of 4 dogs located a hog in a creek bottom, and had him bayed. Had we picked up the original nearby dogs, in order to go after the other long range dogs, we never would have bayed the hog in that creek. That my friends is a real world hunt, and that is why I continue to run both GPS and Radio collars on my dogs.
I think circle c has the right idea. nothing wrong with extra tracking. I know it's gotta suck to put all that on every dog, cause im about to pull my hair out just vesting and putting tracking and shock collars on. It's a long process to say the least. You know how they are too, always wanting to love on you while your trying to vest the other dogs. Putting their heads on top of your hands and wanting you to pet them. For crying out loud, if I could vest and collar a dog from waist high while the dog was clipped along with all the others like in the boat, I would be a happy man.
