Thank you France! Where are you English government?
France has now followed Wales & Scotland In banning shock collars. They have also taken things a step further and banned prong collars and choke collars without a restricter.
“MPs voted on January 16 in favour of banning all “use on cats or dogs of any device that has an electrical charge, a looping collar which tightens without a restriction or which has spikes turned in towards the animal’s body”.
Scottish guidance states that: "Causing unnecessary suffering is an offence under the Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006. This includes suffering caused by inappropriate training methods."
In Wales, guidance states:
(1) It is prohibited for a person to—
(a)attach an electronic collar to a cat or a dog;
(b)cause an electronic collar to be attached to a cat or a dog; or
(c)be responsible for a cat or a dog to which an electronic collar is attached.
The Action Plan for Animal Welfare (May 2021) Set out to ‘ban remote controlled electronic training collars (‘e-collars’), given their scope to harm cats and dogs.’ This has not yet been brought into force in England. Plans are ongoing to write this into English law along with many other overdue changes.
Research has shown that the application of an electric shock to dogs or cats, even at a low level, can cause physiological and behavioural responses associated with stress, pain, and fear.
Defra-funded research (2014) has previously found that electric collars are no more effective in training than positive reinforcement methods, and they also have a negative impact on welfare. Just like us, dogs learn by association and a painful electric shock can have disastrous consequences for the dog. For example if a dog receives an electric shock when he is barking at people because he is scared of them, what will he learn? He’s likely to learn that being in the presence of people equals pain. He might not bark anymore, but the shock has done nothing to improve the way he feels about people - in fact the collar has made things far worse by increasing his fear which may result in him using aggression the next time he sees a person.
When choosing a trainer make sure they understand what is causing the behaviour and work on changing how your dog feels to bring about change in what your dog does. Shocking a dog into submission it’s not training, it’s abuse.
Shock collars, prong collars & choke collars cause unnecessary pain and suffering for dogs, and a total ban on their use is well overdue.