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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