Dogs: Electric Collars

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they intend to take with regard to electric dog collars following the conclusion of their research on the effect of pet training aids.

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I shall concentrate my remarks today on dogs. This issue has quite some history. The last time that this House addressed it substantially was in 2006 with the Animal Welfare Act, when I tabled some amendments. At that time we took a lot of evidence from the police and other serious dog trainers, and none of those serious dog trainers, such as the police, had a good word to say for electric shock collars as a training method, and no force would use them. Nor would any of the other organisations training dogs as help animals, whether for the visually impaired or for the deaf. Nevertheless, after strenuous lobbying from the electric dog collar manufacturers, the then Government resisted a ban.

A few things have changed since 2006. Public support for a ban has grown even stronger; 79% of people would now like to see these things banned. I accept that it might be a bit different in your Lordships’ House, having just had a lively debate over tea with a number of colleagues, but nevertheless 79% of the general public would like to see them banned. Since 2006, Defra has commissioned and completed the research on this issue, on which I congratulate it, and I will mention the conclusion shortly. Since 2006, I have become a dog owner again after a long break. That is relevant to this debate in so far as our dog Beano was the runt of the litter for whom food was of no interest, which made her especially difficult to train.

Why do I see a severe problem with England continuing to allow such things to be used and misused as training aids? As dogs are both the most faithful and the most useful companion animals to man, we feel that we can make great demands on them when it comes to training. Every day in your Lordships’ House, for example, the spaniels are at work keeping us safe as sniffer dogs, while guide dogs guide some of our noble friends. As I mentioned, none of the trainers who train these dogs would dream of using this device. They want and need well trained dogs, that result from positive training and dogs that have a really high level of trust with their handler.

There have been a number of academic studies on this subject. I could quote the 2004 study by Schilder, who found that there were many signs of stress. His conclusion was that the dogs learn that the presence of their owner announced the reception of shocks even outside the normal training context. That demonstrates a lack of trust between dog and handler. I saw for myself a vivid example of the confusion of a dog subjected to an electronic training aid. A small terrier, on the beach where we were walking our puppy in the winter, was attracted by our young puppy and ran towards her. Each time the small terrier approached, his owner zapped him. He screamed and jumped. It was quite clear that he did not understand whether it was our puppy, us or the sea that was the problem but I am sure that he lives in fear of his owner.

In 2006, the arguments against a ban seemed to have two main elements. First, there were livestock concerns. Indeed, the worrying of sheep concerns all of us, and I am as concerned as anybody about that. If we were to think of a real country of sheep in the UK, we might think of Wales. It may surprise your Lordships to know that the Welsh Government banned electric shock collars in 2010. There is no evidence that the Welsh regret this ban. One of the results has been dogs on leads, properly under control—as they should be around sheep. If you imagine the hills of Wales and a dog with an electronic collar on the other side of a hill, it will not even be within range of the zapper. It needs to be on a lead.

Another argument was that a ban would endanger dogs as some owners use collars that prevent the dog leaving their property—say, on to a busy main road. The ban I am suggesting is for manually controlled devices only, not “proximity collars” for those activated by the dog passing a virtual fence line. I agree that the latter have a place and, just as livestock in a field will learn not to approach an electric fence, the dog will learn not to approach that place of danger, such as a road.

The Defra-funded research studies published in 2013 greatly favour the Kennel Club’s and Dogs Trust’s electric shock collar campaign. The first Defra project concluded that there was great variability in how electric shock collars were used on dogs and showed that owners worryingly tended neither to read nor to follow the advice in the manuals. The main conclusion was that there were significant negative welfare consequences for some of the dogs that were trained with electric shock collars in that study. The second study—interestingly, and imaginatively on Defra’s part—was designed with the Electronic Collar Manufacturers Association to make sure that it was fair. It followed all sorts of designs which that association put in place. Yet it concluded that there was still a negative impact on dog welfare.

My noble friend the Minister may say that action following the research is impractical because owners can still get collars from the internet, through the post. That argument does not hold much water because, as I am sure my noble friend will agree, anything that is banned or controlled—whether drugs, firearms, and so on—is rightly banned. Just because you could get them through the post is not a reason for neither controlling nor banning them. Then again, the Minister may feel that guidance to owners is enough already, but the evidence is that many owners are already not reading the manual. Guidance is not amenable to enforcement. You cannot make somebody read a manual; that is really impossible to police and enforce.

I hope that the Minister will be tempted to take some further action following Defra’s research. He may envisage a number of options, and I look forward to hearing them—from an outright ban, for example, to a minimal collar that would allow only a low-grade shock and not something up to six or eight volts. In researching this, I looked up some of the adverts for these collars. You buy the same collar for an extremely small terrier as for a Rottweiler; you simply alter the size of the neck. It gives the same level of shock which, to a small dog, is going to be severe, but I am not arguing that they should continue in any case. Given that the Defra research showed that most people do not read or follow the instruction manual, what does the Minister suggest regarding guidance? With misuse the dog may show absolutely no visible sign of physical hurt. However, given that the Government have declared parity between physical and mental health, and given the Defra research that says that a dog becomes psychologically damaged—and, I contend, in many cases very fearful and cowed—is that an acceptable method of training a dog?

In conclusion, I strongly urge the Government to take action on this. At least two Bills in the other place have called for a ban, both with cross-party support. Such collars are now banned in Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, some states of Australia, and, as I mentioned, Wales. Such a ban has widespread public support. There is no argument for their continual use, as we can see from professionals such as the police, who train dogs properly. The Kennel Club and the Dogs Trust, which represent thousands of dog owners, see the efficacy of properly run dog-training classes which result in the sort of effects that owners are trying to get. I therefore hope that this Government will take further action in a positive spirit.

In the end, a decision will not be technical. It will be a political decision based on informed judgment, although at the end of the day it will be a moral decision, such as those taken by those countries that have already chosen to put this ban in place. I therefore hope that the Minister and his colleagues will shortly be able to make a decision on further action.