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What follows is a brief article outlining part of ARDO’s correspondence with New South Wales decison makers.
Prong Collars, Welfare Claims, and Pre-Committed Narratives
In recent years, debates surrounding dog training tools have increasingly been framed in terms of moral certainty rather than evidential uncertainty. Following sustained campaigning against electronic training collars — a debate that remains live and politically active in the UK, with renewed commitments to consultation during the current parliamentary term — similar claims are now being advanced in relation to prong (or pinch) collars.
In the UK, this framing has been promoted most visibly through materials associated with the Animal Welfare Evidence Centre (AWEC), a joint initiative in which the RSPCA is a principal organisation, alongside bodies including Four Paws. This article examines how prong collars are being characterised within that framework, how those claims relate to the available evidence, and why caution is warranted when advocacy language is treated as settled welfare science.
It is important to be explicit at the outset. I do not regularly use prong collars. However, I frequently train with owners that do.
That absence of extensive applied experience does not grant me authority to condemn their use, nor does it justify casting aspersions on those — trainers or responsible, ethical owners — who may use them thoughtfully and lawfully. If anything, it places me in a position of acknowledged limitation: able to speak from an objective, theoretical, observational, and evidential standpoint.
Objectivity in welfare discourse does not require personal endorsement of every tool under discussion. It requires intellectual honesty, proportionality, and a willingness to distinguish between misuse, responsible use, and the limits of existing evidence.
The process of summarising and interpreting evidence is not neutral. Decisions about what questions are asked, which studies are included, how uncertainty is described, and what language is used to convey conclusions inevitably reflect the assumptions and values of those doing the interpreting.
This matters because the Animal Welfare Evidence Centre presents itself as an impartial interpreter of science, yet it is led by organisations with long-standing, publicly stated opposition to a broad category of training tools commonly labelled “aversive”. The risk here is not fabrication of evidence, but pre-committed interpretation — where conclusions are shaped by values already in place before the evidence is assessed.
Much of the AWEC-linked guidance promotes “reward- and choice-based training” while rejecting “negative” or “punishment-based” approaches. This framing presents dog training as a binary moral contest — positive versus negative, ethical versus unethical — rather than as a practical, welfare-centred process.
In reality, competent trainers and responsible owners do not begin with ideology or fixed methodology. They begin with the animal in front of them, the environment that animal must function within, and the outcomes required to secure stable, individually appropriate welfare states.
Choice-based training is entirely appropriate where the consequences of a dog’s choices are limited. However, many real-world behaviours carry serious welfare, legal, and safety implications. A dog that chooses to chase vehicles, attack other dogs, jump aggressively toward strangers, pursue protected wildlife, or worry livestock is still exercising choice — but those choices may result in injury, legal sanction, or death.
The assumption that consent or choice is inherently synonymous with enhanced welfare reflects an animal-rights philosophy rather than a practical understanding of animal care. Welfare is not something an animal “has”; it is a state of being, reflecting the animal’s ability to cope with and thrive within its environment. In many cases, appropriate guidance, boundaries, and timely intervention are essential to achieving secure, individually centred welfare outcomes.
Categorical descriptors such as “cruel”, “painful”, “unnecessary”, and “having no place in modern dog training” appear frequently in press interviews and public statements by senior figures within major welfare charities, including the RSPCA’s companion animal welfare leadership and Dogs Trust’s research and policy leadership.
These statements have been made publicly by individuals including Dr Samantha Gaines (RSPCA) and Dr Rachel Casey (Dogs Trust), whose professional roles place them at the intersection of research, advocacy, and policy influence. The issue is not that welfare concerns are raised, but that such language conveys evidential certainty that the scientific literature does not support.
The “Science”
In relation to prong collars specifically, the empirical evidence base is limited and highly contextual. Some studies, including the work of Salgirli et al (2012) examining police dogs, have associated pinch collars with elevated stress indicators and poorer welfare outcomes. However, the authors themselves explicitly noted the influence of highly authoritarian training styles, involving powerful working dogs trained for demanding public-order roles.
Crucially, the researchers acknowledged the significant impact of trainer behaviour and style — a confounding variable sufficient to caution against attributing observed effects solely to the training tools under examination. Where trainer effects are substantial enough to be noted by the authors themselves, they cannot be ruled out as being as responsible for observed behavioural and physiological responses as the equipment being studied. This creates a clear risk of correlation–causation error.
These findings have not been replicated in everyday civilian contexts involving companion dogs, typical owners, or routine public environments. Nor have they been repeated outside law-enforcement or military settings. As such, while informative, they cannot be regarded as conclusive or robust evidence applicable across contexts.
To borrow from the philosopher David Hume, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence*. Claims that a tool is inherently cruel, universally harmful, or has no legitimate place in modern dog training demand a level of evidential support that is currently absent.
*[Although Hume did not write the modern paraphrase “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” the principle underlies his argument that claims contradicting experience require correspondingly strong justification].
Spotlight on Scotland.
Scotland is often cited in discussions of aversive training tools, and it is important to be clear and consistent about what can — and cannot — be inferred from its guidance-led approach.
When reviewing handheld electronic training collars, the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission did not treat prohibition as the only conceivable policy response. It explicitly acknowledged that e-collars may, in limited and tightly controlled circumstances, reduce the risk of livestock predation. On that basis, the Commission set out in detail what a regulatory or exemptions-based model would require, including use confined to livestock avoidance, mandatory exhaustion of alternative methods, licensing and regular evaluation of trainers, prescribed device standards, and direct supervision.
However, the Commission rejected this approach not because benefits were absent, but “in view of the costs and bureaucracy of establishing such a regulatory scheme, and doubts about its potential effectiveness”, concluding that it was unable to recommend an exemptions-based model as an appropriate way forward (Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, 2023).
That reasoning must be understood against a broader backdrop. Livestock worrying has imposed sustained and increasing welfare, emotional, and financial costs on the farming community for decades — not only in Scotland, but across the UK and internationally. The Commission acknowledged that it had before it, a tool with the potential to reduce attacks, prevent animal deaths, limit financial losses, and reduce the psychological stress faced by farmers. Nevertheless, anticipated administrative feasibility, governmental cost, and concerns about enforceability were treated as the more pressing, decisive considerations.
[Author’s note:
At this point, I find it difficult to reconcile this reasoning with how scientific inquiry normally operates. Any research programme, regulatory trial, or controlled intervention is, by definition, an exploration into uncertainty, where effectiveness cannot be guaranteed in advance. If doubts about potential effectiveness were sufficient grounds to abandon structured regulation or tightly controlled exemptions, very little scientific or policy progress would ever occur. In this case, the rejection of a regulatory model appears to rest not on demonstrated harm or proven misuse in Scotland — where there have been no prosecutions, investigations, or convictions relating to electronic collar use — but on concerns that a more nuanced approach might prove administratively challenging. That is a striking threshold on which to justify a blanket ban when the benefits of not doing so, carry acknowledged benefits to animals and entire communities].
The contrast becomes even clearer when SAWC’s later report on other ‘aversive’ training devices is considered. In its 2025 conclusions, SAWC explicitly stated that it found limited peer-reviewed literature demonstrating benefit for aversive training devices other than e-collars, and that while such devices can be associated with welfare harm, the Commission does not currently make any formal recommendations to Scottish Ministers regarding legislation or guidance for specific devices. Importantly, SAWC acknowledged that it cannot give robust, evidence-based guidance on which devices should or should not be used and therefore did not recommend prohibition of prong collars or other aversive tools.
Instead, SAWC identified the unregulated nature of the dog training and behaviour profession as the primary welfare risk and recommended that Scottish Ministers introduce legislation requiring trainers and behaviourists to operate within a regulatory framework, supported by welfare safeguards and guidance (Scottish Animal Welfare Commission, 2025).
In effect, similar evidential uncertainty led to markedly different policy recommendations: prohibition in the case of electronic collars (ban them), and restraint with an emphasis on regulation and safeguards in the case of prong collars and other aversive devices (regulatory approach). This asymmetry cannot be explained by evidence quality alone. Neither can the administrative burden, financial implications or enforcement difficulties remain valid obections explained to deny regulation of a single training tool (the electronic collar), if an entire profession can be regulated, monitored and enforced. It should now become quite clear, that this glaring justification discrepency raises important questions about how uncertainty, administrative convenience, and stakeholder pressures shape welfare policy. Should the dog training and behaviour industry become officially ‘regulated’, then it would undoubtedly be the same unelected, ‘anti-aversive’ lobby group coalition, putting themselves forward to structure, advance and enforce this regulation.
The ‘evil by association’ con – Putting the good egg in the rotten-egg basket
Recent developments in New South Wales, Australia, illustrate a recurring rhetorical strategy. In a public statement, the responsible minister paired dogs left in hot cars with prong collars, describing collars with “prongs that spike into the necks of puppies and dogs”.
Leaving dogs in vehicles has a well-documented history of serious harm and loss of life, whether arising from neglect, misjudgement, or unforeseen circumstances. Pairing a contested training tool with such outcomes – dropping the good egg into the rotten egg basket – creates moral equivalence by proximity, priming emotional response before evidential evaluation. In a nutshell, dogs DO die in cars, therefore prong collars MUST kill or cause harm to dogs.
This strategy is not unique to Australia. Similar rhetorical pairings have appeared previously in the UK, where electronic collars have been singled out for inclusion alongside severe physical abuse. In each case, emotionally charged comparison precedes — and often replaces — careful engagement with and objective scrutiny of all available evidence.
Conclusion
The growing campaign against prong collars follows a familiar pattern: emotive language, ideological certainty, selective interpretation of evidence, and pressure for prohibition in advance of robust scientific consensus.
This article does not argue that prong collars should be used, promoted, or normalised. Nor does it argue that they should be prohibited, regulated or demonised. It argues that policy and public guidance should not be built on rhetorical certainty where evidence remains limited, contextual, and confounded by human factors.
Good welfare science is cautious. It distinguishes preference from proof, misuse from use, and advocacy from evidence. Where those distinctions are lost, welfare debates risk becoming political exercises rather than genuine attempts to secure more stable, individually appropriate welfare outcomes for dogs — and for the people responsible for them.
Jamie Penrith
The Association of Responsible Dog Owners®; January 25th, 2026
References
Animal Welfare Evidence Centre (AWEC). Organisational materials and guidance on dog training and behaviour. https://www.rspca.org.uk/whatwedo/latest/animal-welfare-evidence-centre
Blackwell, E.J., Bolster, C., Richards, G., Loftus, B.A. and Casey, R.A. (2012). The use of electronic collars for training domestic dogs: estimated prevalence, reasons and risk factors for use, and owner perceived success as compared to other training methods. BMC Veterinary Research, 8, 93.
Dr Rachel Casey (Dogs Trust) quoted in The Kennel Club (2022). Call for end to Shock Collars. Available at: https://www.royalkennelclub.com/about-us/resources/media-centre/2022/november/call-for-end-to-shock-collars/ (Accessed: 25 January 2026).
Dr Rachel Casey and Emily Blackwell argue there is a “sufficiently robust scientific argument for the banning” of ‘shock’ collars: UK Parliament (2007). Electric Shock Training Devices Bill — House of Commons Debates, 27 April 2007. Hansard. Available at: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070427/debtext/70427-0004.htm (Accessed: 25 January 2026).
Dr Samantha Gaines, High Court Judicial Review, England; “These cruel devices… using pain and fear… unacceptable… unnecessary…” Landmark Chambers (2019). Electronic Collar Manufacturers Association & PetSafe Ltd v Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (PDF, includes DEFRA tweet quoting Samantha Gaines). Available at: https://www.landmarkchambers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Electronic-Collar-Manufacturers-v-SS-for-Environment-24-Oct-2019.pdf (Accessed: 25 January 2026)
Four Paws. Companion animal training guidance and welfare materials. https://www.four-paws.org.uk/our-stories/publications-guides/being-a-responsible-pet-owner
Hume, “a wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence” (Hume, 1748, Section X). Hume, D. (2007). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, edited by T. L. Beauchamp, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
NSW Government (2026). Ministerial statements on proposed animal welfare reforms. https://www.nsw.gov.au/ministerial-releases/nsw-government-delivers-on-communitys-demand-for-better-animal-welfare-laws?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://spca.bc.ca/wp-content/uploads/shock-collar-assets-Salgirli-Efficacy-and-stress-effects-between-3-training-methods.pdf
Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (2023). Report on the use of handheld remote-controlled training devices (e-collars) in dog training. Scottish Government. Available at:
https://www.gov.scot/publications/report-use-handheld-remote-controlled-training-devices-e-collars-dog-training-scottish-animal-welfare-commission/
Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (2025). Report on training devices other than handheld remote-controlled devices (e-collars): Conclusions and Recommendations. Scottish Government. Available at: https://www.gov.scot/publications/report-use-devices-handheld-remote-controlled-electronic-devices-e-collars-shock-collars-training-dogs/pages/6/