19/12/2024
After releasing Episode One with Wallace, I dove into your comments, reactions, and messages. The feedback was overwhelmingly fantastic.
But….some of you were unsettled, maybe even shocked, by my assertion that it’s still alarmingly common for trainers to slap on a choke chain [or other aversive collar] with a dog like Wallace who was very avoidant of me and extremely reluctant to interact with me initially.
Some questioned whether I was exaggerating, as though these harsh methods were fringe and not baked right into the mainstream. However that IS the status quo, and it’s often excused under labels like “balanced” training, “respect,” or “leadership.”
I’m not here to pick pointless fights. I am here, however, to call out a reality that too many in this industry work hard to keep under wraps: the normalization of pain and fear.
We saw this repeatedly in 2024, even with the faux ‘force free’ community who could not unequivocally condemn the intentional use of pain and fear in this profession.
Consider that researchers at Arizona State University, who collaborated with shock collar trainers, still found that every single dog in a shock collar group yelped in pain when the device was used “properly”. Let that sink in.
These were shock collars being tested on dogs for very basic training skills. And they collaborated with one of the fiercest defenders of shocking dogs in the industry, Ivan Balabanov, who could not even get 20% of the dogs to comply with his pain based approach, and who demonstrated his inability to implement modern evidence-backed approaches that do not rely on pain and fear.
These are facts, and they’re terrifying when you think about how freely pain is administered under the guise of animal training, not only by obscure trainers, but also by those with prime-time TV slots and international seminar tours.
We see shock jocks in media circles tossing out half-baked defenses of these tools as though “dominance and leadership and respect” were a scientific principle, not a thinly veiled justification for violence...
The reality is, the same justifications historically used to excuse violence towards women or children, claims of “teaching respect,” “maintaining control,” or “establishing authority” are the very ones being used to justify inflicting pain and fear on dogs at the professional level.
It’s all rooted in a harmful power dynamic, where those with the most power impose pain to force compliance, while dismissing the emotional harm done to the vulnerable.
The stunned reaction from many of you just shows how expertly this industry’s old guard has gaslighted the public.
They’ve convinced people that pain and intimidation are part and parcel of “good training.” They are not. They never were.
Modern, evidence-based methods that nurture trust, build confidence, and respect each dog’s emotional life are not some fringe ideal. They are here, they are real, and they produce results without leaving emotional and physical scars
Let’s continue normalizing calling out anyone who pretends that hurting dogs is just another “tool in the toolbox.”
(If you are curious to see the clip in question I posted it yesterday and you can see it on my page or you can see the full episode on YouTube.)
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