Story of the Shark Fin® Collar

What inspired the Shark Fin® Collar?

It started when Jack Armstrong decided to get into the pet industry as a new career path. Having designed equipment in healthcare for many years, he was eager to design a new product for the pet industry. Dogs make up the biggest portion of sales in the pet industry so he decided to look into collar designs. What he discovered was that not much has changed over the last 4 decades. Nylon collars were the big innovation along with tracking and fitness wearables.

So, why not have a beautiful stylish collar that also had the electronics integrated into the collar so you couldn't see the electronics? The main problem with this idea is there isn't a place to safely and comfortably locate the electronics in an ordinary linear collar. To have a robust electronics system you need enough space to put the boards, antenna, and battery in a sealed package. This space requirement is fulfilled by the size of the fin on the Shark Fin® collar.  Thus the Shark Fin® was born. 

For this design concept to be successful, people had to want the Shark Fin® collar for its style, strength, durability, and "cool factor." In other words, regardless of whether or not it had an electronics package, people had to love the collar on its own.  So Jack and the team set out to design, develop and manufacture Shark Fin® collars and take them to the public in a pop-up store at street fairs and festivals. The results were overwhelmingly positive. The only problem was there weren't enough sizes in stock and enough color choices. All of that has since been resolved. And now, engraved nameplates that can be riveted on are available. And the latest style option is laser tattoos giving a whole new dimension to customization. Very cool!

Now comes the difficult part, how to add an electronic GPS tracking system that was as good as or better than any other system on the market and find a way to attach it to the underside of the fin on the collar. And it had to be waterproof and impact resistant. Enter Kevlar. Kevlar is lightweight, super-strong, flexible, and 100% waterproof when the resin is applied. It is the perfect solution for the Shark Fin®! 

Sounds easy, right? Not so much. It took over two years of trial and error to find the right formula of resin, the right brand, the right procedures, the right mold, and the company to make the molds. And then came testing to see about the transmission of signals, comfort on a dog, waterproofing, and many fails on finding good components and suppliers. It was all worth it. Our concept is now a reality! And we have a patent pending on the iFIN™ GPS tracking system.

So from here we will need to get funding to go into full production for all of our products. Stay tuned!