17/02/2022
This morning, for the second day, I woke up to over 20 messages on one of my Instagram posts against prong collars.
Instead of proving me wrong with studies proving prong collars don't hurt dogs (because there aren't any), the Instagram "balanced" dog trainer community called me names, put words in my mouth (specifically that I want "dogs to die"), attempted to discredit me and attacked some of my followers.
This is how positive reinforcement trainers burn out and stay silent. Many of us are targeted like this, and the constant management on these posts to keep hurtful and inappropriate comments off our pages feels like it isn't worth the effort.
So, we stop posting. We avoid it. I have so many fellow trainers who thank me because they feel like they can't speak out against aversive training anymore.
I refuse to stop speaking out about these tools. You don't define me. Your opinion does not impact my abilities, my education, who I am as a person and discrediting me does not prove that aversive tools are good. It proves that just like when you're "training" dogs and you don't know what you're doing, you turn to aggression to solve your problems.
I'm throwing out my surrendered prong collars and bark collars today just for you.
