The collar you put on your dog
In a pet shop, the collar shelf has around twenty models. None of them says on the label what it does to the dog. Let me tell you, one by one.
What each one actually does
The flat collar and the harness. They hold the dog. That's all. They don't teach it anything and they don't do anything to it. If it pulls on them, the pulling is a walking and learning problem, not a collar problem.
The choke collar and the choke chain. They tighten when the dog pulls and release when it stops pulling. The dog learns to stop pulling, so it stops being squeezed. It works. The question isn't whether it works — it's what exactly the dog learns while it's working.
The prong collar. It spreads the pressure over several points instead of a single one. You'll be told that "it's gentler than it looks, see, I'll put it on my hand". Maybe. Only your hand knows why it's feeling it. The dog doesn't.
The electric collar. It's the most effective of them all at stopping a behaviour, and that's exactly why it's the most dangerous. It doesn't stop the emotion. It stops the expression of it.
And here's the core of it, the part worth reading to the end for
A dog never explodes out of the blue. It climbs a ladder, rung by rung. It freezes. It looks away. It licks its lips. It yawns. It pulls back. It growls. And only after all that, if nobody has listened to it, does it bite.
Each rung is a message. The growl is the last polite message it sends you.
What happens when you punish the growl?
The dog doesn't conclude "I'm no longer allowed to be upset". It concludes "I'm no longer allowed to say I'm upset". The fear is still there, untouched. Only the warning has gone.
That's why, for me, the hardest case isn't the dog that growls. It's the dog that hasn't growled in a long time and one day bites, and the owner says, sincerely and horrified: "he did it out of the blue".
It wasn't out of the blue. It's just that someone, years ago, cut away the bottom rungs of the ladder.
A silent dog isn't a calm dog. It's a dog whose warning system you've broken.
What the science says. Including the part I don't like
A study of 92 companion dogs, taken from seven real training schools, compared schools that work with harsh methods against those that work with reward. The dogs from the first group showed more signs of stress during training, higher stress hormones after the session and — the part that matters most — they were more pessimistic in a test carried out outside the training hall, at home, in their ordinary lives. The effect didn't stay at school. It went home with them.
Another study, of 63 companion dogs referred for recall problems, compared training with an electric collar, done by industry-accredited trainers, with training without one. The dogs with the electric collar spent significantly more time tense, yawned more often and explored less. And the final result was just as good in both groups. The authors' conclusion, in short: no consistent benefit, but greater welfare concerns.
And now the part nobody from my camp tells you.
There are also studies pointing the other way, and it would be dishonest to hide them. A recent one managed to stop the chasing of a lure in two sessions with an electric collar, where the gentle methods didn't succeed at all, and observed few signs of stress. So yes: the tool works, and it works fast. That's true and there's no point pretending otherwise.
But the same study ran one last test, in a new arena. There, 67% of the dogs chased the lure again. It worked fast and it didn't hold when the place changed. And another study, on police dogs handled by professionals, measured less stress with the electric collar than with the prong collar — which says less about the current and more about the prongs.
What I read from all this, as someone who works with dogs every day. My argument isn't "it doesn't work". That would be a convenient lie. My argument is that it works on the expression, not on the cause, and that it doesn't hold when the context changes. And you don't want a dog that behaves nicely in the yard and falls apart in the park. You want a dog that is well, anywhere. The European Society of Veterinary Clinical Ethology, which brings together Europe's veterinarians specialised in behaviour, firmly opposes the use of these tools.
What the law says. And this is where it will surprise you
In Romania there is a law that obliges anyone who takes part in training an animal to use means that don't cause psychological or physical trauma.
And the implementing rules go further and state, word for word, that in animal training all equipment that produces electric shocks is banned, as are sharp or blunt objects, and all methods that involve punishing or correcting the animal by hitting, injuring or inducing fear.
Not since this year. Since 2008.
Let's be fair to the end: it isn't a criminal offence. It's a minor offence, with a fine of between 3,000 and 12,000 lei, established by the sanitary-veterinary directorate or by the police.
Eighteen years. And almost nobody quotes this text.
In April, the European Parliament voted the first European law dedicated to the welfare of dogs and cats. It placed electric current, the prong collar and the choke collar without a stopper in an article titled "painful practices" — on the same list as hitting, beating and dragging the animal. That regulation binds breeders, sellers and shelters, and will come into force in a few years. It doesn't bind you.
But it says something worth remembering: when the European legislator had to choose which category to put these tools in, it didn't put them under "equipment". It put them under pain.
What you do with this information
I'm not asking you to throw anything away and I'm not asking you to argue with anyone. I'm giving you three questions you have the right to ask anyone who takes your dog in hand — trainer, boarding kennel, school:
What equipment do you use and what happens to the dog when you use it? A clear answer is a good sign. "It depends on the dog", with nothing after it, isn't.
What do you do when the dog makes a mistake? This is where you find out everything. There is correction without pain: you change your breathing, you raise your tone, you take a step, you block access. Correction isn't the problem. Pain is.
Can I watch a session, from beginning to end? A "no" to this question is an answer in itself.
One thing from me, so we're honest to the end
With me, there is correction. I'm not the school where the dog does whatever it wants and everyone smiles. There is a clear "no", there are limits, there are consequences, and they're the same every time.
It's just that none of them goes through pain.
The line isn't between correcting and not correcting. The line is between correcting and hurting. They're two completely different things, and almost all the confusion in Romanian dog training sits exactly there.
Your dog doesn't need to be afraid of you in order to listen to you. It needs to trust that you know what you're doing.
That's all.
If you want to understand why everything you've read here works, the first step is KNESsence, the free material in which I've put the essence of the system we work by at KNES. Create an account on knes.ro, you'll get a six-digit code by email and go straight to it.
With care for your dog,
Petre ROMAN
This material is for educational purposes and does not replace an assessment by a behaviour specialist or a veterinarian. A dog that lunges barking, bites or attacks needs an individual, in-person assessment. Don't start a harsh programme on your own with a dog that reacts out of fear — ask for specialised help.
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