Monday, November 28, 2011

Electronic Collars are 50 Years Old


Electronic collars are 50 years old.

The ad, above, is from the 1962 Bill Boatman catalogue, and shows Bill Boatman that year with a four of his own dogs, and a couple of pets borrowed from neighbors.

By 1973, Field & Stream magazine was writing sensible articles about e-collars, including a clear and strong admonition that they were not for training, but for correction. i.e. to remind an already obedience-trained dog to do what it knows it should be doing.

Field & Stream noted that bad trainers with traditional methods are even worse trainers with e-collars, and that to be effective using an e-collar correction on a bird dog, two kinds of good timing are needed:
  1. Good timing in the field so that the correction is well-timed at the moment, and also;
  2. Good timing as far as the dog's life is concerned. If you correct a dog for chasing birds too soon, you diminish the dog's bird interest but if you wait too long and let chasing become a habit. it is much harder to break the habit once it has been started.


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