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San Francisco might develop into the first metropolis in the nation to ban pet dog shock collars—but the news has divided the area canine local community.
Last slide, SF pet trainers and animal welfare advocates proposed a shock collar ban for the metropolis of San Francisco, the initially of its type for a major metropolitan area. These e-collars use what is called ‘static correction’ to deal with a dog’s destructive behavior, and are normally referred as “shock collars” since they coach dogs by zapping them with various levels of electrical energy or vibrations.
The proposed ban has now garnered popular guidance from regional animal welfare advocates—including the nearby SPCA, SF Animal Treatment and Manage and the city’s Guild of Specialist Pet dog Walkers—many of whom declare that the e-collars could really be counterintuitive to teaching aims and can cause undue psychological trauma to your pet.
Assistance for the Ban Mounting
Neighborhood canine trainers have founded Shock-Cost-free SF, a grassroots marketing campaign focused to acquiring the sale and distribution of e-collars banned from the city, and also forbidding their use by trainers and pet dog proprietors alike. Founders Ren Volpe and LT Taylor, both animal conduct specialists and trainers, purpose to educate San Franciscans about means to prepare their animals safely and according to the most up-to-date science.
“San Francisco has generally been at the vanguard of animal welfare reform, from the SF SPCA’s start of the no-get rid of movement in 1994 to getting the 1st key U.S. town to ban the declawing of cats in 2009,” wrote Volpe. “This is not some extremist animal legal rights position: Quite a few prominent and respected businesses, from the US Humane Culture to the American Veterinary Professional medical Affiliation, agree that shock collars have no place in present day canine training.”
In accordance to Shock-Free SF’s draft ordinance, veterinarians and behaviorists largely denounce these “aversive” coaching procedures, which they say can cause canine to “suppress or mask their outward signals of fear,” reversing the intended aims of their use—and usually creating puppies that struggle with aggression to develop into additional outwardly harmful.
Advocates for the ban alternatively insist that optimistic reinforcement can address any dog’s behavioral issues, regardless of their severity.
“SFACC does not control dog training, nevertheless, there is a good deal of science to support our perception that beneficial reinforcement is the ideal way to have a risk-free and delighted relationship with your canine companion,” reported SFACC Executive Director Virginia Donohue.
If San Francisco legislators make your mind up to go ahead with this movement, it would be the 1st metropolis in the country to do so—despite a great number of nationwide efforts from animal welfare advocates to enact additional limitations and restrictions on static correction.
Petco declared in 2020 that it would ban the sale of digital shock collars, positioning by itself as a “health and wellness firm for pets” that champions positive reinforcement education. Legislators in New York condition have also proposed equivalent legislation that guarantees to ban the sale or distribution of shock collars. Volpe states that quite a few countries have banned shock collars, immediately after Germany began the development in 2006.
And it is not just animal welfare on the line organizers see their motion as an extension of San Francisco’s well known social justice undercurrents, as very well as its reputation as a metropolis obsessed with its canine buddies.
“St. Francis of Assisi, patron saint of San Francisco and all animals, considered that animals are not topics to be dominated, exploited or abused,” wrote Shock-Free of charge SF advocates in their draft ordinance. “As the 1st town in the country to ban the use of e-collars, San Francisco life up to our tradition as a frontier of justice, rights for all and progressive tips.”
Shock Collar Advocates Disagree
Although rescues, animal welfare corporations and puppy walkers throughout SF back again the legislation, other folks really feel shock collars are safe and sound when utilised accurately.
Critics of e-collar bans say that shock-absolutely free advocates fundamentally do not recognize how static correction functions, and that a ban would just take absent an a must have coaching resource for doggy homeowners with specially stubborn pets.
“We guidance static correction used effectively,” claimed Jennifer Joyce, President of SpotOn, a static correction fencing organization. “Under the way of folks who’ve been qualified, who know how to use it in a positive way, it can be an efficient education device and an effective way of education pet dogs that have behavioral challenges.”
Joyce says that there is a basic misunderstanding of how shock collars really should be—and are—used, major to blanket ban legislation like the a single proposed in SF. Instead, advocates of static correction say that rigorous teaching is required with these e-collars, and that they are not supposed to be made use of usually to cruelly shock or startle a doggy.

“The issue is not to inflict ache, the point is for the collar to deliver a a bit uncomfortable emotion that actually stops the fixation on what ever is luring them, no matter what is distracting them or leading to them to be reactive,” Joyce said.
Advocates for e-collars say that painful shocks are almost never at any time applied, and that other additional gentle static correction techniques like collar vibrations exist to simplicity pet dogs into these teaching resources.
Still, shock-no cost advocates vehemently refute these statements, and each supporters and critics of shock collars admit that there are minor to no laws surrounding them—such as necessary teaching or quality control—that might lessen the chances of an proprietor misusing or abusing static correction tools.
Upcoming Steps for Shock Collars in SF
Even with some opposition from regional e-collar advocates, the shock-no cost movement has by now gained traction in San Francisco.
In October, SF’s Fee of Animal Control and Welfare voted to aid a proposed shock collar ban, after conference with Shock-Absolutely free reps. Regional pet retailers also made a decision to end marketing shock collars, perfectly before the probable ban was released and in line with Petco’s stance on static correction.
“The Fee agrees with [Shock-Free SF representatives] that the apply of administrating animal instruction through discomfort is inconsistent with our City’s values of treating all existence with kindness,” wrote the SF Animal Control and Welfare Commissioners in a letter to District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston.
Shock-No cost co-potential customers Volpe and Taylor say that further more legislative endeavours are on the horizon, like making support for a statewide bill to call for dog trainers to give ‘informed client consent,’ or clear info about the risks and advantages of instruction procedures.
The next phase? Organizers require to find a metropolis supervisor to sponsor the bill, and vote to enact the legislation.
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