From Respected Professionals to Accused Animal Abusers?
Surgeons. Hospital consultants. Anaesthetists. Doctors. GPs. Dentists. Nurses. Pharmacists. Veterinary surgeons. Veterinary nurses.
Police officers. Lawyers. Solicitors. Accountants. Teachers. University lecturers. Members of Parliament.
Electricians. Plumbers. Gas safety engineers. Farmers.
Professional dog groomers. Dog walkers. Staff members from the PDSA, Battersea, Dogs Trust and independent rescue organisations.
Even ‘qualified’ positive-only dog trainers.
These aren’t people I’ve read about in a report.
They are people I have personally worked with over the years. And some use the very equipment that others now want prohibited.
They represent an extraordinary cross-section of society, with different academic backgrounds, professional qualifications, responsibilities and experiences.
Some make life-or-death decisions in operating theatres. Others work in law enforcement, education, government, veterinary medicine, farming and animal welfare.
And they have something else in common.
They have sought professional help for their dogs.
Some are dealing with aggression, predatory behaviour or complex behavioural difficulties. Others want greater reliability, control and safety.
They have invested their time, effort and trust in professional behavioural support.
So if the government makes that equipment illegal to use tomorrow, what exactly changes about these individuals?
Does Legislation Change a Person’s Character Overnight?
Consider the surgeon.
A highly educated professional entrusted with opening the human body, performing complex procedures and making decisions upon which another person’s life may depend.
Does that surgeon suddenly become incapable of making a responsible decision about their own dog’s welfare because a particular piece of training equipment becomes prohibited?
Consider the veterinary surgeon, professionally qualified to diagnose, treat and protect animals.
Do they suddenly lose the ability to recognise cruelty?
Or the university lecturer, responsible for educating future generations. Do they suddenly become incapable of sound judgement?
What about the Member of Parliament involved in scrutinising the very legislation governing responsible dog ownership?
Professional qualifications do not make anyone incapable of mistakes or wrongdoing.
But neither does the use of a particular piece of equipment automatically demonstrate cruelty.
A change in legislation can change what is lawful overnight. It cannot retrospectively establish that every previously lawful use was abusive.
That distinction is fundamental.
Why Would Someone Intending to Abuse a Dog Seek Professional Help?
I believe this question deserves far more attention.
Why would someone whose intention is to deliberately abuse a dog purchase specialist training equipment and then seek the guidance of a professional dog trainer or behaviour practitioner?
Someone determined to inflict suffering doesn’t need specialist equipment.
They could open a kitchen cupboard, walk into their shed or misuse any number of ordinary household items.
Cruelty does not require a specialist training tool.
In my work, I meet owners who have rearranged their lives around managing difficult behaviour. People who have tried different approaches, sought professional assistance and made considerable efforts to help their dogs.
Their decision to seek support doesn’t guarantee every intervention is appropriate. But it is relevant when considering their intentions.
There is a fundamental difference between deliberately inflicting suffering and actively seeking professional help to resolve a genuine behavioural problem.
And yet, increasingly, I see those distinctions becoming lost in a debate driven by conflicting training philosophies.
You Can Remove Equipment. You Cannot Remove the Intention to Cause Harm.
The Animal Welfare Act 2006 already makes causing unnecessary suffering an offence where its legal requirements are met.
But equipment restrictions raise another question.
If someone is determined to mistreat an animal, what makes policymakers believe removing one particular training tool will prevent that person from finding another means of causing harm?
I am not suggesting that equipment cannot be misused or that all equipment carries identical risks.
I am questioning whether prohibition addresses the underlying problem.
An individual who deliberately inflicts suffering should be held accountable for their conduct.
An owner seeking professional guidance should have their actions and the consequences for their dog assessed fairly.
These are not interchangeable circumstances.
My concern is that we are increasingly debating what people hold in their hands rather than adequately examining what they actually do with it.
Scientific Research Is Not Beyond Question
This is where I have some of my most serious concerns.
Scientific research is regularly presented within the dog training industry as though it has conclusively settled the debate between reward-based and balanced training.
I do not accept that the existing evidence has answered every question necessary to justify that level of certainty.
And I certainly do not believe a collection of published studies should be treated as beyond criticism simply because their conclusions support a particular training philosophy.
Science is not a declaration of truth. It is a process of investigation, testing, criticism and revision.
Medical history provides numerous examples of treatments that were supported by clinical research and professional opinion, only for subsequent investigation to reveal serious limitations, unexpected consequences or even catastrophic harm.
Why, then, should canine behavioural science be treated as though its conclusions are immune from the same scrutiny?
Are We Actually Comparing Equivalent Training Methods?
Balanced training is not one standardised technique.
It encompasses different applications of reinforcement, behavioural interruption, environmental management and equipment.
The competence, timing, judgement and experience of the practitioner can substantially influence how an intervention is delivered.
Yet studies commonly classify training into broad categories such as reward-based, mixed-method or aversive.
My concern is that these categories can conceal substantial differences in how training is actually conducted.
A poorly timed, excessive or inappropriate correction is not necessarily representative of how an experienced balanced practitioner would apply an intervention.
Likewise, reward-based training delivered by an inexperienced handler may differ considerably from the same principles applied by an accomplished professional.
So how do we reach a fair comparison if those variables are not adequately controlled?
How do we distinguish between the consequences of the method and the competence of the individual applying it?
And how confidently can findings from a limited number of trainers and dogs be generalised across an entire profession?
These are not minor technicalities.
They are questions about the validity and interpretation of the research itself.
Are the Studies Examining the Dogs and Behavioural Problems We Actually Work With?
My professional work involves dogs presenting with aggression, significant predatory behaviour, livestock chasing and complex behavioural histories.
These cases cannot necessarily be represented by a controlled training exercise involving a relatively small or unrepresentative sample of dogs.
I want research that reflects the realities of professional behavioural rehabilitation.
Research comparing competent practitioners from different training approaches under genuinely comparable conditions.
Research examining complex behavioural cases, not simply straightforward obedience exercises.
Research assessing the reliability of outcomes, recurrence of behaviour, consequences of failure and overall quality of life.
If researchers have not adequately investigated particular applications of balanced training, they cannot claim to have established every possible outcome associated with those applications.
That does not mean an unstudied approach is automatically effective or safe.
It means the unanswered questions remain unanswered.
What About Long-Term Welfare?
Dogs cannot describe their subjective psychological experience.
They cannot tell researchers whether they feel emotionally blunted, increasingly anxious, frustrated or distressed.
They cannot explain whether a change in behaviour reflects genuine emotional improvement or a different response to their circumstances.
Researchers must interpret behavioural observations, physiological indicators and other measurements.
Those measurements are valuable, but they require careful interpretation.
A reduction in undesirable behaviour does not independently establish improved emotional welfare.
An immediate stress response does not independently establish permanent psychological harm.
And a short-term study cannot, by itself, demonstrate what happens to a dog’s welfare over the following five or ten years.
Where is the comprehensive longitudinal research comparing different training interventions across substantial periods of a dog’s life?
How are changes in behaviour, medical treatment, environmental circumstances and handler competence accounted for?
How are delayed consequences identified?
How are owner expectations and researcher assumptions prevented from influencing interpretation?
These are the variables I want to see examined far more thoroughly.
What About Research That Challenges the Prevailing Narrative?
In 2024, Johnson and Wynne published a study comparing electronic-collar training with food-reward approaches for stopping dogs chasing a moving lure.
Under the procedures used, the electronic-collar group achieved greater initial success in stopping the chase behaviour.
That does not establish universal superiority, and the study has limitations of its own.
But it demonstrates why research that produces findings inconsistent with prevailing assumptions deserves examination rather than automatic dismissal.
I am not asking science to produce results that favour balanced training. I am asking for research that is genuinely capable of challenging any training philosophy, including those currently regarded as preferable.
If the research is robust, the methodology should withstand serious scrutiny.
If the variables are inadequately controlled, those limitations must be acknowledged.
And if meaningful gaps exist in the evidence, policymakers should not present those gaps as questions that have already been conclusively answered.
What Happens to the Dogs if Equipment Is Banned?
This is where the discussion becomes particularly important.
I work with dogs whose behaviour can have serious consequences.
Dogs with histories of aggression.
Dogs displaying predatory behaviour towards livestock and wildlife.
Dogs whose owners are struggling to maintain reliable control in circumstances where failure may result in injury, danger or significant welfare consequences.
Before equipment used in the management or rehabilitation of these dogs is prohibited, I want to know what evidence has been gathered about the consequences.
What happens to dogs whose owners currently rely upon particular interventions?
Have alternative approaches been adequately compared in equivalent behavioural circumstances?
Have policymakers considered the possibility that some owners may become less willing or able to exercise their dogs in certain environments?
What happens when a behavioural intervention fails to achieve adequate reliability?
And how will the long-term welfare implications of prohibition itself be evaluated?
I do not believe that removing an available intervention can automatically be assumed to improve every dog’s welfare. That outcome must be investigated, not presumed.
The objective should be to understand what produces the best overall outcomes for dogs, including the consequences of interventions succeeding or failing.
My Position on Equipment Bans
I want to make my position absolutely clear.
I do not support a blanket ban on dog training equipment, including electronic training collars.
I do not support deliberate cruelty, unnecessary suffering or the reckless application of training equipment.
But I reject the assumption that the use of a particular tool automatically demonstrates abusive intent.
I also question whether the existing comparative research is sufficiently representative, methodologically robust and comprehensive to justify the sweeping conclusions sometimes drawn from it.
These are separate issues, and they deserve to be considered separately.
For me, responsible animal welfare policy must examine how equipment is used, the competence of those using it, the behavioural circumstances involved and the actual consequences for the dog.
It must also consider the people whose lives and animals will be affected.
That includes owners who have sought professional help precisely because they are trying to prevent harm.
The Question Policymakers Must Answer
Over the years, I have worked with people from almost every imaginable professional background.
Surgeons, doctors, veterinary professionals, police officers, teachers, university lecturers, farmers, animal welfare workers and Members of Parliament.
They are not all the same. Their dogs are not all the same. Their circumstances are not all the same.
Nor should their judgement, intentions or commitment to animal welfare be determined by a single equipment choice.
These are not hypothetical people. They are my clients.
Some have experienced behavioural difficulties that most members of the public will never encounter.
They have sought professional assistance because they want to help their dogs and manage those difficulties responsibly.
Before policymakers remove options currently available to those owners, I believe they should be prepared to explain the strength of the supporting evidence, the limitations of that evidence and the consequences that have been considered.
Animal welfare cannot be reduced to a competition between training ideologies.
It requires an examination of actual behaviour, actual risks, actual outcomes and the individual needs of dogs.
I want scientific research that is rigorous enough to challenge the views of every participant in this debate, including my own.
And I want decisions about the future of dog training equipment to reflect the complexity of the real world, not simply the conclusions of studies whose methods and limitations may not adequately represent it.
You can remove a piece of equipment from somebody’s hands. But have you addressed the intention, behaviour or circumstances that could lead to an animal suffering?
That is the question I believe policymakers and animal welfare organisations should be prepared to answer.
Lisa Whitehouse
Canine Behaviour Consultant
Canine UK
Behaviour. Welfare. Professional Accountability.
