The Owensboro Humane Society

The Owensboro Humane Society (OHS) only endorses the use of positive training on animals.  Due to the recent influx of dominance and shock collar specialist trainers entering the tri-state to conduct training sessions, the OHS board of directors has taken a stance that we do not support any training methods that involve dominance, choke collar, or shock collar training.

Shock Collars are often called Electronic collars, E-collars, or Remote Training Collars.  Our belief is that some pet owners and novice trainers choose to train with shock collars because of the following:

1) They mistakenly believe that a shock collar is a short-cut that will provide a simple, easy, fast solution to their training problems.
2) They are not aware/care of the mental or physical harm they may be doing to their dogs by shocking them.
3) They are unaware they can accomplish the same thing with pain-free positive methods that other trainers in our community endorse.

The stance of the OHS board of directors is that this type of training could be considered a form of torture and no OHS animals will be trained using these methods.  Shock/E-collars are illegal in some countries (for example Wales) and it is illegal to use a shock collar on humans in the US.  With this in mind, OHS asks why would any pet lover place this device on any animal under their care or use a trainer who promotes this method?

The strongest relationships between dogs and humans are based on cooperation and kindness rather than a human dominance/animal submission methodology, which is central to outdated traditional training methods.  Positive training helps to establish and maintain a connection that increases trust and therefore creates a stronger bond between dog and owner.  Positive training can be implemented for aggressive dogs, hard to train dogs, and dogs with other issues.

Michael Vick”s dogs (NFL player who was convicted of dog fighting) were trained and rehabilitated at the Best Friends Animal Society using positive training methods.  These dogs have gone on to compete in agility, receive AKC Canine Good Citizen Certificates, and even become therapy dogs.  Ultimately, positive training results in a dog who follows an owner because it wants to, rather than following out of fear.  In contrast, traditional training uses punitive methods to force a dog to behave, often resulting in a ‘quick fix’ that never truly identifies the root cause of the misbehavior while promoting insecurity and negative behavior.

The Owensboro Humane Society offers positive only training classes as does most of the areas dogs trainers.  OHS urges any dog owner looking into dog training to research the program/trainer thoroughly before committing to training.

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