I Almost Quit Dog Training This Year. I Joined ICLAC Instead. Here Is What the Profession Has Become.

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Opinion · Force-Free Advocacy

I Almost Quit Dog Training This Year. I Joined ICLAC Instead. Here Is What the Profession Has Become.

After more than fifty years of training dogs, thirty-six of them as a professional, I came close to walking away, and not because force-free training fails. We already won that argument. We are losing the market to a loud, uneducated minority with a camera, nobody has the power to stop them, and the only fix left is a law. Below the piece: the 169 organizations that already agree with me, by name.

I almost quit dog training. I joined ICLAC instead. Cover for the opinion article by Will Bangura on what the dog training profession has become.
The standards were published years ago. The people selling “every tool in the toolbox” are counting on you never reading them.

The confession

I almost quit

This year, for the first time in thirty-six years as a professional, and more than fifty years of training dogs, I seriously considered leaving the profession. Not because the work stopped working. The work has never been better. Behavior science is stronger than it has ever been, the veterinary behavior specialty is thriving, and I watch fearful and aggressive dogs recover every week without anyone laying a hand on them.

I considered leaving because I was ashamed of the company I keep. The word “professional” now belongs to anyone who wants it. A man who has never read a study, never sat an exam and never answered to anyone can put “master trainer” on the side of a van, strap a shock collar on a dog that has already bitten a child, and call himself my colleague. When I object, he calls me a cookie pusher and posts a video.

Dog training is not a profession. It is a trade wearing a profession’s costume. It has been captured by the least qualified people in it. And the only thing that will fix it is a law.

I am not leaving. I decided instead to say in public, and in full, what the people who actually know this field say to each other in private. Dog training is not a profession. It is a trade wearing a profession’s costume. It has been captured by the least qualified people in it. And the only thing that will fix it is a law.

No floor

There is no floor

Nobody licenses dog trainers. There is no exam, no minimum education, no supervised hours, no board, no register and no one to complain to. A hairdresser needs a thousand supervised hours before she is allowed to touch your hair. A man who wants to put a shock collar on your dog needs a business card. That is the entire barrier to entry. There is no floor.

A profession has four things: a body of knowledge, an education that transmits it, standards that are enforced, and a way to remove the people who violate them. Dog training has all four available and none of them required. The standards have been written; the 169 organizations at the bottom of this page wrote them. The education exists; the credentialed consultants and the veterinary behaviorists did it. And the loudest voices in the industry have opted out of every bit of it, because opting out costs nothing and pays well.

The culture

A macho sport, not a science

Dog training grew up as a trade, taught mostly by military and police handlers to men who wanted obedience, and its culture was fixed before anyone in it had read a page of learning theory. That culture is still the culture. It is the last corner of animal care where a man is admired for making an animal submit.

That is why the industry is synonymous with anti-intellectualism. Everywhere else, education is the entry ticket. Here it is treated as a weakness. The behaviorist with a master’s degree is “academic.” The veterinary behaviorist has “never worked a real dog.” The trainer who reads is “soft.” The man who can wrestle a German Shepherd to the ground is “a real dog guy.” This is not a scientific behavioral profession. It is a macho sport with one event: who can be the biggest alpha.

It is not a scientific behavioral profession. It is a macho sport with one event: who can be the biggest alpha.

Understand who is being mocked. A veterinary behaviorist is a veterinarian, a full medical degree, who then completed a multi-year residency in behavior and passed a specialty board examination. There are only a few hundred of them on earth, and their college issued a statement against shock collars in December 2025. A certified applied animal behaviorist holds a doctorate in the science of behavior. A certified behavior consultant has documented case hours, an examination and a code with teeth. These are the people the man with the camera calls “out of touch,” and the man with the camera has, in most cases, never completed a single course in the subject he charges money to practice. The credential he mocks is the education he could not pass. The credential he holds is only his business card.

And the profession was pulling out of it. Through the 1990s and early 2000s, learning science finally reached trainers, the veterinary behavior specialty was established, the first certification bodies appeared, and the dominance model was being dismantled by the man who built it: the wolf biologist whose 1970 book popularized the “alpha wolf” spent the rest of his career trying to retract it. Then, in 2004, television handed the alpha back to every living room in America. The Dog Whisperer sold dominance, alpha rolls and leash pops to millions in a format that made suppression look like magic, at the exact moment the veterinary profession was writing position statements against every one of those ideas. AVSAB published its position against dominance theory in 2008 largely because of what that show was teaching. It did not matter. One hour of prime time undid a decade of progress, and a generation of trainers built careers on the reruns.

Consider who did that. Cesar Millan had, and has, no education in animal behavior and no credential from any body in this field. His background before television was a job in a dog-grooming shop and a set of Hollywood connections, and his qualifications for teaching a nation how to handle aggressive dogs were good looks, charisma and a camera. In Germany, one of the few countries that requires a state permit to train dogs for money, the collars his methods relied on are banned, and German animal-welfare groups petitioned to keep his tour off their stages. A man who could not lawfully do in Germany what he did on American television became the most influential dog trainer in the world. That is this profession’s floor, on national television.

Social media finished the job. Television at least had a gatekeeper. The algorithm has none. It took the one-man dominance act that used to reach a strip mall and gave it a global audience, a follower count that reads like a credential, and a business model in which the more dramatic the suppression, the more the video pays. Ten years ago that man’s reach ended at his parking lot. Now the platform seats him next to a veterinary behaviorist as if they were peers. They are not peers. One of them can read a study. The other makes videos about why studies do not matter.

The pitch

I know the pitch, because I used to give it

For most of my career I was a balanced trainer. I used prong collars, electronic collars, choke chains and leash corrections, the same tools and methods this article is about, and I used them for decades. I gave the speech about “every tool in the toolbox,” and I believed it, because the dog in front of me stopped doing the thing I did not want and the pet parent went home happy. That is the whole sales cycle. The behavior stops, the invoice gets paid, and nobody stays around long enough to see what the suppression cost.

I was wrong, and dogs paid for it. When I finally sat down with the research and, more importantly, with the dogs I had trained that way, I crossed over and never went back. I say that so you know this is not written by someone who has never held a remote. It is written by someone who read the evidence and put the remote down. The difference between me and the people still holding one is not experience. It is what we did when the evidence arrived.

Crossover trainers exist. I know many. We are few and far between, and not because force-free training is hard to learn. It is because crossing over requires admitting you were hurting dogs for a living, and in a culture built on being the biggest alpha in the room, that admission is the one thing a man cannot make.

The business model

What “balanced” actually means

Strip the branding off and the model is simple. Balanced training sells you the result and hides the cost, and it can do that because the cost is paid by the one party in the transaction who cannot complain, cannot consent and cannot leave.

“Every tool in the toolbox” sounds like versatility. Read it again. It is a confession. It means that when the trainer runs out of skill, the dog gets hurt until the behavior stops, and the invoice calls that success. There is no version of “results at any cost” in which the trainer pays the cost. The dog pays it. The pet parent pays for it. The trainer walks away with a video.

There is no version of “results at any cost” in which the trainer pays the cost. The dog pays it.

Ethics in any profession that serves a vulnerable party means one thing: the welfare of the party who cannot consent comes before the customer’s convenience and the practitioner’s results. Medicine runs on that ordering. Child care runs on it. Balanced training reverses it and calls the reversal a philosophy.

And they know. You can prove they know by listening to the words. The shock collar became a “stim collar,” then an “e-collar,” then a “remote communication device.” Pain became “pressure.” A yank on a prong collar became “a correction,” then “information,” then “a tap.” Nobody rebrands a thing they are proud of. The vocabulary exists because “we shock your dog until he stops” does not sell, and the industry has spent twenty years finding words that do. Marketing does not change function. Intent does not change function. The dog’s nervous system responds to what actually happens to it, and what actually happens to it is the product.

The institutions

The people who actually know

Here is the part the balanced trainer never mentions, because it ends the conversation.

The American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, the professional body for the veterinarians who specialize in behavior, says electronic collars, prong collars, choke chains, leash corrections and other physical or psychological punishment “should not be used under any circumstances.” Not as a last resort. Not in the right hands. Not for the tough cases. The American Animal Hospital Association tells pet parents to “never use aversive techniques, such as shock or prong collars, cattle prods, alpha rolls, or beating,” and you should notice which company prong and shock collars keep in that sentence. In 2024 the Federation of Veterinarians of Europe, FECAVA and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association jointly called for a complete ban on electric pulse training devices. Australia’s veterinary association says punishment and negative reinforcement “should not be used” and that prong collars “must not be used under any circumstances.”

“Aversive methods ... should not be used under any circumstances.”American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior
First page of the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior Humane Dog Training Position Statement, 2021
The AVSAB Humane Dog Training Position Statement (2021). Click to read the full statement as a PDF on avsab.org.

That is the veterinary profession. The balanced trainer will tell you veterinarians are not trainers. Fine. In 2025 the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, one of the two largest credentialing bodies in the country, retired its shock-collar exception: it “requires members to refrain from using shock in any training or behavior modification.” The same year the Joint Standards of Practice, co-authored by APDT International, the IAABC and Karen Pryor Academy and endorsed by Assistance Dogs International among others, prohibited any technique that relies on “fear, pain, distress, or harm” and any tool “designed to cause, or that functionally result in causing, fear, pain, or startle.” In the United Kingdom, the council that keeps the national practitioner registers requires that programs “must not be based on Positive Punishment or the creation of anxiety or fear.” In German-speaking Europe, nearly a thousand professionals and fifty organizations, including two veterinary societies and the national kennel club, have signed a code that forbids check chains, prong collars, shock collars and “everything which frightens the dog or causes pain or discomfort.”

I have documented 169 of these organizations, across six categories and more than 30 countries. They do not all say precisely the same thing, and I will not pretend they do; some reject the whole class of aversive methods and some ban specific equipment. What none of them do, anywhere on the list, is endorse a shock collar, a prong collar or a choke chain. These are enforceable codes with complaints procedures, not blog posts. A trainer who belongs to one of these bodies and uses a prong collar is not balanced. He is in breach.

Nobody hides a consensus they agree with. The reason you have never heard a balanced trainer mention this list is that the list is the end of the argument.

The evidence

We already won

It is a joke that I have to write this article. I want to say that plainly, because the joke is the point.

The argument about aversive dog training is over, and it has been over for years. I keep a study-by-study reference of the peer-reviewed evidence, more than sixty papers across eleven methodology groups, with every design, finding and limitation laid out for anyone who wants to check my work: Peer-Reviewed Studies Behind Force-Free Dog Training. The pattern in it is not subtle.

What the peer-reviewed evidence actually shows

When the electronic-collar industry’s own nominated trainers were tested against reward-based trainers on recall problems, the reward-based dogs did as well or better and the collar-trained dogs showed more stress.1 The same trainers did no better with the collar than without it.2 Whatever the experts were bringing to the table, it was not coming from the collar. Confrontational methods provoked aggression in dogs at rates no one should be comfortable with: hitting or kicking 43 percent of the time, the alpha roll 31 percent.3 At the population level, dogs trained with aversive methods had higher odds of aggression toward their own families.5

Here is the finding balanced trainers should fear most. In a UK survey, the highest aggression scores were not in the dogs trained with punishment alone. They were in the dogs whose guardians combined rewards with punishment, which is exactly what “balanced” means.4 Balanced is not the middle. In the data it is the worst.

Dogs from aversive-based schools show more stress behaviors, higher cortisol after training and a more pessimistic outlook measured outside the training context.6 Dogs trained with two or more aversive methods are measurably more pessimistic.7 Shock-trained dogs show fear in the training context even when the collar is off and no shock is coming, because what they learned was the trainer.8 The hardware itself is a scandal: when thirteen commercial collars were measured, stimulus energy varied eighty-seven-fold between products, two of the thirteen had manufacturing faults, and one could deliver a maximum shock regardless of the setting.9 In France, nearly three quarters of the people using these collars had no professional advice at all, and seven percent of the dogs had physical wounds.10 A one-year-old German Shepherd was euthanized after a choke-chain “hanging” correction cut off the blood supply to his brain.11 A systematic review of the comparative literature found no evidence that punishment teaches better than reinforcement and plenty that it costs the dog.12

Balanced trainers reject every one of these studies as false. Not flawed in some specific way they can name and defend; false, all of them, sixty papers by independent teams on three continents, because the alternative is reading them. Against all of that, the balanced camp has one study. It reports narrow efficacy for a shock collar under specific protocol conditions, and its methodology has been challenged in the peer-reviewed literature.13 One contested paper against sixty is not a debate. It is a marketing department.

One contested paper against sixty is not a debate. It is a marketing department.

So understand what “losing” means here. We are not losing the argument. The argument has been decided by every body qualified to decide it. We are losing the marketplace, because evidence does not have an algorithm and the collar industry does, and because a won argument that nobody can enforce is just a longer bibliography. That is what a law is for. A law is how a finished argument gets a floor put under it.

The credential

The fig leaf, and how it got there

When a balanced trainer wants to sound credentialed, the letters that come out are usually CPDT-KA, from the Certification Council for Professional Dog Trainers. I hold that credential. I have no quarrel with the exam. I have a serious quarrel with the policy behind it, and here is why the letters get mentioned and the policy never does. The CCPDT’s own position statement says it “does not forbid the use of electronic collars” used within its Humane Hierarchy, and when it updated its policies in 2025 it kept that door open for shock and prong collars while the IAABC closed it.

That is the split in this profession: 169 organizations that said no, and one certification body that says “not first,” and a trade that treats “not first” as a license. The credential is not evidence of humane practice. It is the fig leaf.

The credential is not evidence of humane practice. It is the fig leaf.

It was not always like this. The CCPDT was created to be the independent standard for the profession, and for years it was the credential serious trainers were proud to hold. In 2018 it co-authored the Joint Standards of Practice with APDT and the IAABC. In 2025, when those partners rewrote the Joint Standards to prohibit positive punishment and any tool that causes fear, pain or startle, the CCPDT was no longer on the document. Its own 2025 Prohibited Practices Policy talks about bridging the gap between “academic theory” and “real-world experience,” which is the balanced camp’s phrase for keeping the collar. More than nine hundred credentialed professionals, welfare advocates and members of the public have signed a public petition telling its board and ethics committee that the 2025 standards “fall critically short of what modern science and ethical responsibility require.” The board has not moved.

How does an institution built to raise the standard end up defending the floor? The same way every captured institution does. Look at who sits on its board today and who it books to teach its continuing-education credits, and decide for yourself whether it is still the independent standard it was founded to be. My read, after thirty-six years in this profession and with my own certificate on the wall, is that it is not. The CCPDT credentials are worthless today as a signal of humane practice, because the organization that issues them will not say what humane means. It sold its soul to keep the peace with the people it should have been policing. When my own CCPDT certifications come up for renewal, I have no plan to renew them. The balanced faction did not win the argument inside the organization. It showed up, it stayed, and it made the cost of standing against it higher than the cost of writing a policy everyone could live with.

And it is not only the CCPDT. I have watched major educational conferences in this field, events that exist to teach the science, put balanced trainers on the stage in the name of hearing both sides, as if the welfare literature were a debate-club topic. There are not two sides to whether a shock hurts. When a conference books a man to argue that it does not, the conference has not been balanced. It has been intimidated.

That is the part nobody in the force-free world likes to say out loud: the bullying worked. The balanced camp is organized, it is loud and it punishes. Trainers who speak up get their reviews brigaded, their inboxes flooded and their names dragged through group after group. Organizations that draw a hard line get the same treatment at scale. So boards seat them for “diversity of methods,” conferences book them for “balance,” standards get written in language soft enough that everyone can claim compliance, and the progress this profession made through the 1990s and 2000s stops. Not because the evidence changed. Because the people with the evidence got tired of being attacked, and the people with the collars never got tired of attacking.

The mechanism

Why it works on you

If the evidence is this one-sided, why do capable, experienced trainers still swear by the remote? Because of what a correction does to the trainer. When a correction stops a lunge instantly, everyone in the room gets relief: the dog goes quiet, the pet parent exhales, the trainer relaxes, and the trainer’s own behavior, pressing the button, has just been paid for with a large, immediate, deeply satisfying consequence. That is negative reinforcement operating on a human being, and no journal article can compete with it emotionally. I know, because I pressed that button for decades before I saw it in myself.

That explains the belief. It does not excuse it. Once the evidence exists and you have been shown it, continuing is not a habit. It is a decision, made every time the button gets pressed.

And look at what the quiet dog is actually telling you. Suppression is visible; changing an emotional association is not. A quiet dog looks like success, but quiet is not safe, stillness is not relaxed, and the absence of growling is not the absence of aggression. The veterinary guidelines make the clinical point I saw firsthand as a balanced trainer: aversive techniques suppress the warning signals that precede a bite, which makes an aggressive dog more dangerous, not safer. Suppression is a result. It is not treatment. Selling it as treatment is the business.

Suppression is a result. It is not treatment. Selling it as treatment is the business.

Balanced trainers have one demand, and they make it constantly: show me the videos. I answered it, fifty times over. Now turn it around. Show us the veterinary organization recommending shock collars. Show us the welfare society advocating prong collars for fear and aggression. Show us the credentialing body whose code requires intentional pain. That column is empty. They know it is empty. That is why they never ask you to look.

For pet parents

Read this before you hire anyone

You are the regulator. Nobody else is.

The person you are about to hire may have no education in behavior, no credential, no code of conduct, no insurance, no supervision and no one you can report him to. If your dog is fearful or aggressive, the wrong hire does not just waste your money. It gets a person bitten, gets your dog labeled dangerous, gets your dog euthanized, and leaves you holding the liability while the trainer posts his next video. “Results” in that world means the growl stopped. Nobody checks what replaced it.

The tells

The tells are not subtle. A guarantee. The words “pack leader,” “dominance” or “alpha.” “Every tool in the toolbox.” A board-and-train you are not allowed to watch. A refusal to tell you what equipment will go on your dog. Contempt for veterinarians. Anger at being asked. And the word “balanced,” which in this industry means exactly one thing: the trainer reserves the right to hurt your dog when he runs out of ideas, and would prefer you not ask when.

What to ask instead of “positive or balanced”

Do not ask a trainer whether he is positive or balanced; both labels have been marketed into meaninglessness. Ask whether he ever uses shock, prong, choke or leash corrections, ask what happens when your dog gets it wrong, ask how he treats aggression without switching off the warning signals, ask which of the organizations below he is certified by or accountable to, and ask him to name one veterinary organization anywhere in the world that endorses the tools he uses. There is not one. If he gets angry at the question, you have your answer. If he tells you the organizations do not understand real dogs, you have it twice.

Their own words

Look at what they celebrate

If you want to know what the balanced-training industry actually stands for, do not listen to its marketing. Read its mail.

The International Association of Canine Professionals, the organization that certifies balanced trainers and lobbies for their tools, circulated a “Legislative Update” to its members about New York. Under a green banner reading “GOOD NEWS!” it announced that it was “pleased to report that the following bills have failed to advance and will not be moving forward during the current legislative session.” Here is what it was pleased about.

The first was S8510, which “would establish statewide licensing, inspection, staffing, training, and operational requirements for animal boarding kennels.” The second was S7723 and A6985, dog-trainer licensure, which in the IACP’s own description “sought to establish licensing and educational standards for individuals providing canine training services and would have required training standards utilizing ’non-aversive,’ ’evidence-based,’ and ’positive reinforcement’ techniques.” Look at the punctuation. The organization put non-aversive, evidence-based and positive reinforcement inside quotation marks, the way you write a word you do not believe in.

The third was A107, Animals as Sentient Beings, which “sought to establish animals as sentient beings capable of experiencing pain, stress, and fear and would recognize animals as victims of animal cruelty crimes under New York law.”

Read that one twice. A professional body of people who charge money to work with dogs celebrated, in writing, the defeat of a bill that said dogs can feel pain. Not a ban. Not a licensing fee. A sentence acknowledging that the animal at the other end of the leash is capable of suffering. The IACP’s response was a checkmark, the words “GOOD NEWS!”, a warning to its members that “these issues are rarely gone for good,” a promise to keep “monitoring New York and jurisdictions across the country for legislation that could affect professional dog trainers and the canine industry,” and a closing line in capital letters: “FOR NOW, WE’RE HAPPY TO PUT THESE IN THE ’NOT ADVANCING’ COLUMN!”

A professional body of people who charge money to work with dogs celebrated, in writing, the defeat of a bill that said dogs can feel pain.

That is the whole industry in one graphic. Education for trainers: fought. Standards: fought. Accountability: fought. Inspection of the kennels that board your dog: fought. The sentience of the animal itself: fought, and cheered when it lost. You cannot say “we love dogs” and “we are pleased the state will not recognize that dogs feel pain” in the same career. One of those sentences is the business. The other is the brochure.

And understand exactly why the sentience bill mattered to them. An industry whose tools work by causing pain has every reason to keep the law from saying that pain counts. The moment a legislature writes down that a dog can suffer, the “it is just a tap” defense dies, because the question is no longer whether the trainer meant it kindly but whether the dog felt it. They know that. That is what they were celebrating.

The International Association of Canine Professionals Legislative Update for New York, labeled Good News, celebrating that a kennel licensing bill, a dog trainer licensure bill requiring non-aversive, evidence-based, positive reinforcement standards, and an animal sentience bill all failed to advance
The IACP “Legislative Update: New York,” as circulated to its members. Reproduced in full so nothing has to be taken on my word. Open full size.

The fix

The only answer is a law

I have written this article, and I will keep writing them, but I want to be honest about what articles can do. The evidence has been available for twenty years. The position statements have been available for fifteen. The 169 organizations below did not move the men in the videos, and nothing I write will either, because their business depends on not being moved.

Every profession that touches a body went through exactly this. Medicine before licensing was diploma mills, patent tonics and surgeons who did not wash their hands, and the good doctors of the day wrote furious articles about it that changed nothing. Regulation came, as it always comes, after the harm became undeniable and never before. Dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, cosmetology, electrical work, plumbing: each one was a free-for-all until a law drew a floor, and each one is a profession today because of the floor, not because its practitioners argued their way to one.

Regulation came, as it always comes, after the harm became undeniable and never before.

Dog training will be no different, and the map already shows it. Wales banned shock collars in 2010. Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands followed. The United Kingdom built national practitioner registers. Singapore accredits its trainers and issues public advisories against shock and prong collars. The direction is set. The only questions left are how fast, and whose standard gets written into the law when it arrives.

That second question is the whole fight, and it is happening now. As I write this, New Jersey is considering a bill to license dog trainers, and the argument is not over whether to license. It is over whether the standard in the statute will be the old “least intrusive, minimally aversive” language, which still permits a shock collar as a later step, or a force-free floor that does not. A licensing law that enshrines LIMA would hand the balanced-training industry the one thing it has never had: government approval. That is what an organized, well-funded lobby of equipment makers and their trainers is working toward in every statehouse that opens the question. You just read their victory lap.

The law does not even need to be invented. I have already written the model statute and the professional standards to go with it, and they are on this site for any legislator or advocate to use: Model State Policy: Banning Aversive Dog Training Equipment and National Standards for Dog Trainers and Behavior Consultants. I have also written about why the bans that do pass keep failing, and who profits when they do: Why Every Shock Collar Ban Keeps Failing. The work is done. What is missing is the vote.

That is why I am involved with the International Canine Legislative Action Committee, and I am telling you plainly so you can weigh it. ICLAC exists to do what articles cannot: to put bans on shock, prong and choke collars into law, to end training built on pain, fear and intimidation as a legal matter rather than a philosophical one, to see the profession regulated with a force-free floor, and to make sure that when the licensing bills come, and they are coming, they are written by the people who read the evidence rather than the people who sell the collars. The first step is the petition ICLAC has endorsed for a global ban on aversive tools and methods: Sign the petition.

If you are a pet parent, that is where your voice counts most. Not in a comment thread with a man who has already told you he does not believe in studies, but in a letter to the legislator who is about to decide whether that man gets a license.

The decision

I am not leaving

I may be leaving the CCPDT. I am not leaving the profession. I am done being polite about this, and I am done pretending the argument is still open. The profession I want to belong to already exists. It is 169 organizations long, it has a literature, it has standards, and it can remove people who violate them. The industry I am ashamed of has a camera and no floor.

If we can change behavior without deliberately causing fear, pain or distress, why would we not? The profession has answered. The people still pressing the button have answered too. Believe them, and then help write the law that makes the answer matter.

I am leading that change through ICLAC, and I am asking everyone committed to force-free, humane training to join me and support it. Start by signing the petition for a global ban on aversive dog-training tools and methods: Sign the petition. Then send this article to your legislator, your veterinarian and the next pet parent you hear asking for a trainer.

If your dog is fearful, reactive or aggressive, the stakes are higher, not lower, because those are precisely the dogs the guidelines describe as most injured by aversive methods. Aggression is fear with the warning turned up; punishment turns the warning off and leaves the fear. I work these cases every week, without pain, fear or force, and the results hold because the emotional driver is treated rather than suppressed. If you want to see what that looks like: Aggressive Dog Training in Phoenix. The full list of every jurisdiction that has already acted on these tools is here: Where E-Collars, Prong and Choke Collars Are Banned or Restricted.

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Sign the ICLAC-Endorsed Petition

The list

The 169 organizations balanced trainers do not want you to know about

Organizations marked with a dagger (†) are formal signatories of the Initiative for Force-Free Dog Training’s position paper and code of conduct. Where an organization’s scope is broader than dogs, that is noted so nobody has to discover it for you.

Veterinary and veterinary behavior organizations (20)

  1. American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior (AVSAB)
  2. American College of Veterinary Behaviorists (ACVB)
  3. American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA)
  4. Australian Veterinary Association (AVA)
  5. Canadian Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA)
  6. British Small Animal Veterinary Association (BSAVA)
  7. British Veterinary Association (BVA)
  8. New Zealand Veterinary Association (NZVA)
  9. Singapore Veterinary Association (SVA)
  10. European Society of Veterinary Clinical Ethology (ESVCE)
  11. Federation of Veterinarians of Europe (FVE)
  12. Federation of European Companion Animal Veterinary Associations (FECAVA)
  13. World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA)
  14. Federation of European Equine Veterinary Associations (FEEVA) (equine; co-signatory of the 2024 joint position)
  15. Fear Free
  16. Swiss Veterinary Society for Animal Protection (STVT) †
  17. Swiss Veterinary Society for Behavioural Medicine (STVV) †
  18. Certodog, Stiftung für das Wohl des Hundes †
  19. Berufsverband der TierheilpraktikerInnen Schweiz (BTS) † (allied practitioner association)
  20. EGCBT Schweiz, European Guild of Canine Bowen Therapists † (allied practitioner association)

Professional dog training and behavior associations (46)

  1. Association for Professional Dog Training International (APDT International)
  2. Association of Pet Dog Trainers UK (APDT UK)
  3. Association of Pet Dog Trainers Australia
  4. Association of Pet Dog Trainers New Zealand (APDTNZ)
  5. Association of Pet Dog Trainers Ireland
  6. International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants (IAABC)
  7. Animal Behaviour and Training Council (ABTC)
  8. UK Dog Behaviour and Training Charter
  9. Initiative for Force-Free Dog Training (IFD)
  10. Pet Professional Guild (PPG) †
  11. Pet Professional Guild Australia (PPGA)
  12. Institute of Modern Dog Trainers (IMDT)
  13. International Canine Behaviourists (ICB)
  14. Association of INTODogs
  15. COAPE Association of Pet Behaviourists and Trainers (CAPBT)
  16. COAPE Association of Behaviourists and Trainers International (CABTi)
  17. International Companion Animal Network (ICAN)
  18. International Institute for Canine Ethics (IICE)
  19. The Canine Behaviour and Training Society (TCBTS)
  20. Professional Association of Canine Trainers (PACT)
  21. Pet Professional Network (PPN)
  22. Association of Pet Behaviour Counsellors (APBC)
  23. Fellowship of Animal Behaviour Clinicians (FABC)
  24. British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA)
  25. Pet Dog Trainers of Europe (PDTE) †
  26. IBH, Internationaler Berufsverband der Hundetrainer/innen †
  27. ÖBDH, Österreichischer Berufsverband der Hundeerzieher, -trainer und -verhaltensberater †
  28. VDTT, Berufsverband der Tierverhaltensberater und -trainer †
  29. VÖHT, Vereinigung Österreichischer HundeverhaltensTrainerInnen †
  30. SVH StresstrainerInnen Hund †
  31. SKG, Schweizerische Kynologische Gesellschaft †
  32. Kennel Union of Southern Africa (KUSA)
  33. Professional Dog Businesses UK †
  34. Force Free Oregon †
  35. Force Free Trainers of Wisconsin (FFTW)
  36. Alliance of Force-Free Animal Professionals
  37. Dog Scouts of America (DSA)
  38. Dog Welfare Alliance
  39. International Positive Dog Training Association (IPDTA)
  40. Canadian Association of Professional Dog Trainers (CAPDT)
  41. Animal Behaviour Consultants of Southern Africa (ABCSA)
  42. MFEC, Mouvement professionnel francophone des éducateurs de chiens de compagnie
  43. SECEP, Syndicat des éducateurs comportementalistes en positif
  44. Chien en Mouvement
  45. Collectif Pausitif
  46. Association of Animal-Assisted Intervention Professionals (AAAIP)

Dog training education, certification and professional development (46)

  1. Karen Pryor Academy (KPA)
  2. The Academy for Dog Trainers
  3. Victoria Stilwell Academy / Positively
  4. Grisha Stewart Academy
  5. Science Matters Academy of Animal Behavior
  6. Academy of Pet Careers
  7. Animal Training Academy
  8. Canine Behavior College
  9. Carefree Companion
  10. Good Dog Academy
  11. Peaceable Paws
  12. The Phenix Advocacy Center for +R Canine Professionals
  13. Understand Horses (equine; co-signatory of the 2025 Joint Standards)
  14. Do No Harm Dog Training and Behavior
  15. International School for Canine Psychology and Behaviour (ISCP)
  16. College of Scent Dogs
  17. Puppy School
  18. Gundog Trainers Academy
  19. Natural Animal Centre (NAC)
  20. The Dog Trainer School
  21. Animal Centred Education (ACE)
  22. Delta Institute
  23. Nordic Education Centre for Dog Trainers
  24. Canis Hundeskole
  25. GoodDog Norway / GoodDog Academy
  26. BHARCS Academy of Canine Behaviour and Ethology
  27. PUPP Institute
  28. Animal Learn †
  29. AggressiveDog †
  30. Clickerzentrum †
  31. cumcane familiari †
  32. Dog Academy Rakkaat Haukut / Dog Oriented Institute †
  33. Dog-ibox †
  34. Easy Dogs †
  35. Hey Fiffi †
  36. HundeUni, Science Meets Practice †
  37. Hundeherz †
  38. I.E.T. Institut für angewandte Ethologie und Tierpsychologie †
  39. Leben mit Hunden †
  40. Lernwelt Hund †
  41. NF Footstep †
  42. Proactive Animal Consulting †
  43. Sprich Hund! †
  44. SzTVT, Schulungszentrum für Tierverhaltenstherapie und Erziehungsberatung †
  45. ZfTT Zentrum für Tiertherapeuten †
  46. rundum.dog †

Animal welfare, humane, rescue and advocacy organizations (36)

  1. BC SPCA
  2. Montreal SPCA
  3. Toronto Humane Society
  4. Ottawa Humane Society
  5. Winnipeg Humane Society
  6. Calgary Humane Society
  7. Humane Canada
  8. ASPCA
  9. Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society of the United States)
  10. American Humane Society
  11. Best Friends Animal Society
  12. Humane Society of Sonoma County
  13. RSPCA Australia
  14. RSPCA South Australia
  15. RSPCA Victoria
  16. RSPCA New South Wales
  17. RSPCA (UK)
  18. Scottish SPCA
  19. Blue Cross
  20. PDSA
  21. Dogs Trust
  22. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home
  23. SPCA New Zealand
  24. SPCA Singapore
  25. SPCA Hong Kong
  26. Hong Kong Dog Rescue
  27. Cape of Good Hope SPCA
  28. FOUR PAWS International
  29. TIR, Stiftung für das Tier im Recht (Foundation for the Animal in Law) †
  30. Kompanima †
  31. Schaffhauser Tierschutz †
  32. Susy Utzinger Stiftung für Tierschutz †
  33. Stiftung TierRettungsDienst †
  34. Zürcher Tierschutz †
  35. Animal Rescue, Canton Schaffhausen and Thurgau †
  36. DAS TIER + WIR, Stiftung für Ethik im Unterricht †

Assistance, service, therapy, search and working-dog organizations (17)

  1. Assistance Dogs International (ADI)
  2. International Guide Dog Federation (IGDF)
  3. Guide Dogs UK
  4. Guide Dogs Victoria
  5. Guide Dogs Queensland
  6. NEADS Service Dogs
  7. Atlas Assistance Dogs
  8. Dog A.I.D., Assistance in Disability
  9. Pet Partners
  10. Arbeitsgemeinschaft Mantrailing, Rescue and Therapy †
  11. Search and Recovery Canine Network †
  12. Mantrailing Basel †
  13. Mantrailing Plus †
  14. Ausbildungszentrum für tiergestützte Therapie im Rheinland-Pfalz †
  15. Fellverliebt, Training Centre for Therapy Dog Teams †
  16. Helferhund †
  17. TellingtonTTouch Interessens- und Berufsverband Schweiz †

Legislative, government and kennel bodies (4)

  1. International Canine Legislative Action Committee (ICLAC)
  2. The Royal Kennel Club (UK)
  3. Animal and Veterinary Service, National Parks Board (Singapore)
  4. Norsk Kennel Klub (NKK)
169 organizations. Not one of them endorses a shock collar, a prong collar or a choke chain.

Common questions

What pet parents ask me about balanced trainers and the list

Q.Are these organizations against all aversive tools, or just shock collars?

It varies by organization, and the list says so where it matters. Most of the veterinary and professional bodies reject the whole class of methods that rely on pain, fear, intimidation or coercion; AVSAB, AAHA, the IAABC, the ABTC and the UK Dog Charter are examples. A smaller number publish equipment-specific positions, most often against electronic collars, while recommending reward-based training. None of them endorse shock, prong or choke collars.

Q.What does “force-free” actually mean?

It does not mean “positive reinforcement only.” Force-free behavior modification uses positive reinforcement, differential reinforcement, desensitization, counterconditioning, antecedent arrangement, management, choice and, where appropriate, extinction and non-aversive negative punishment. It includes muzzles, barriers, distance, veterinary evaluation and medication when indicated. The line is simple: nothing is done to the dog on purpose to cause pain, fear, startle, discomfort or intimidation.

Q.Is “balanced” training the same as LIMA?

No, but the two overlap in a way pet parents should understand. LIMA (least intrusive, minimally aversive) is a hierarchy that still permits aversives as a later step. Balanced trainers use that permission as a license. Force-free organizations reject the step entirely, which is why the IAABC’s 2025 standards and the 2025 Joint Standards of Practice prohibit positive-punishment strategies outright rather than ranking them last.

Q.Does a CPDT-KA credential mean a trainer is force-free?

No. The credential tests knowledge, and many excellent force-free trainers hold it. The certifying body’s own position statement says it “does not forbid” electronic collars used within its Humane Hierarchy. Ask the trainer what they use, not what letters they hold.

Q.Is this not just a disagreement between two training philosophies?

A philosophy does not get you expelled from a professional body. The organizations on this list publish codes of conduct with complaints procedures and sanctions. When the veterinary profession, the credentialing bodies and the welfare sector all adopt enforceable rules against the same tools, the “two philosophies” framing is marketing, not description.

Meet Your Certified Canine Behaviorist

Professional headshot of Will Bangura, M.S., CAB-ICB, Certified Canine Behaviorist specializing in dog aggression.

Will Bangura, M.S., CAB-ICB

CBCC-KA, CPDT-KA, FDM, FFCP

Arizona’s only CAB-ICB Certified Canine Behaviorist through International Canine Behaviourists, and one of only three in the United States. Will has trained dogs for more than fifty years, thirty-six of them professionally, and was a balanced trainer who used the tools and methods described in this article before crossing over to force-free, evidence-based practice. He works with severe aggression, fear, anxiety, reactivity, and complex canine behavior cases, holds a Master of Science in Psychology, is certified in Applied Ethology, is a Certified Behavior Consultant Canine and Certified Professional Dog Trainer through the CCPDT, and is a Fear Free Certified Professional.

By identifying the underlying causes of aggression, anxiety, and other behavior problems and improving emotional regulation, Will helps pet parents across Phoenix and the surrounding metro area build safer, calmer, and more predictable relationships with their dogs. He is a court-recognized expert witness in canine behavior, the author of Sniff to Soothe, and the host of the Dog Training Today podcast.

Read Full Biography

For your dog

If your dog is fearful, reactive or aggressive, the stakes are higher

Those are precisely the dogs the veterinary guidelines describe as most injured by aversive methods. I work these cases every week, without pain, fear or force, across the Phoenix metro area and, by video, across the country. Start with aggressive dog training in Phoenix if your dog has a bite history or is escalating, or read the science-based guide to fearful, anxious, and reactive dogs if the problem runs on fear.

Schedule a Behavior Consultation Book a Free 15-Minute Call Sign the ICLAC-Endorsed Petition

Have a dog you are worried about? Call (602) 769-1411.

References

  1. Cooper, J. J., Cracknell, N., Hardiman, J., Wright, H., & Mills, D. (2014). The welfare consequences and efficacy of training pet dogs with remote electronic training collars in comparison to reward based training. PLoS ONE, 9(9), e102722. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0102722
  2. China, L., Mills, D. S., & Cooper, J. J. (2020). Efficacy of dog training with and without remote electronic collars vs. a focus on positive reinforcement. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 7, 508. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2020.00508
  3. Herron, M. E., Shofer, F. S., & Reisner, I. R. (2009). Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 117(1–2), 47–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2008.12.011
  4. Blackwell, E. J., Twells, C., Seawright, A., & Casey, R. A. (2008). The relationship between training methods and the occurrence of behavior problems, as reported by owners, in a population of domestic dogs. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 3(5), 207–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2007.10.008
  5. Casey, R. A., Loftus, B., Bolster, C., Richards, G. J., & Blackwell, E. J. (2014). Human directed aggression in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris): Occurrence in different contexts and risk factors. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 152, 52–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2013.12.003
  6. Vieira de Castro, A. C., Fuchs, D., Morello, G. M., Pastur, S., de Sousa, L., & Olsson, I. A. S. (2020). Does training method matter? Evidence for the negative impact of aversive-based methods on companion dog welfare. PLoS ONE, 15(12), e0225023. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0225023
  7. Casey, R. A., Naj-Oleari, M., Campbell, S., Mendl, M., & Blackwell, E. J. (2021). Dogs are more pessimistic if their owners use two or more aversive training methods. Scientific Reports, 11, 19023. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97743-0
  8. Schilder, M. B. H., & van der Borg, J. A. M. (2004). Training dogs with help of the shock collar: Short and long term behavioural effects. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 85(3–4), 319–334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2003.10.004
  9. Lines, J. A., van Driel, K., & Cooper, J. J. (2013). Characteristics of electronic training collars for dogs. Veterinary Record, 172(11), 288. https://doi.org/10.1136/vr.101144
  10. Masson, S., Nigron, I., & Gaultier, E. (2018). Questionnaire survey on the use of different e-collar types in France in everyday life with a view to providing recommendations for possible future regulations. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 26, 48–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2018.05.004
  11. Grohmann, K., Dickomeit, M. J., Schmidt, M. J., & Kramer, M. (2013). Severe brain damage after punitive training technique with a choke chain collar in a German shepherd dog. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 8(3), 180–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2013.01.002
  12. Ziv, G. (2017). The effects of using aversive training methods in dogs: A review. Journal of Veterinary Behavior, 19, 50–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jveb.2017.02.004
  13. Bastos, A. P. M., Warren, E., & Krupenye, C. (2025). What evidence can validate a dog training method? Learning and Behavior, 53, 227–228. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13420-024-00658-9 (critique of Johnson, A. C., & Wynne, C. D. L. (2024). Animals, 14(18), 2632. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14182632)

Full study profiles, including limits and the proponent readings, are in the author’s Studies Playbook: https://phoenixdogtraining.com/aversive-dog-training-research-studies/, companion to *The Scientific Case Against Aversive Dog Training Equipment and Methods* (Bangura, April 2026): https://phoenixdogtraining.com/scientific-case-against-aversive-dog-training/.

Organizational positions quoted above (accessed September 2026): American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior, Position Statements, https://avsab.org/resources/position-statements/ and the Humane Dog Training Position Statement (2021) PDF, https://avsab.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/AVSAB-Humane-Dog-Training-Position-Statement-2021.pdf; American Animal Hospital Association, Behavior Management for Pets, https://aaha.org/resources/behavior-management-for-pets/; Australian Veterinary Association, policy on dog training, https://www.ava.com.au/?p=9053; FVE, FEEVA, FECAVA and WSAVA Joint Position Paper on the Behaviour and Training of Animals, https://fve.org/publications/fve-feeva-fecava-and-wsava-joint-position-paper-on-the-behaviour-and-training-of-animals/; BSAVA, Aversive Training Methods, https://www.bsava.com/position-statement/aversive-training-methods/; NZVA, Behaviour Modifying Collar Use on Dogs, https://nzva.org.nz/policy-advocacy/policies/collars; IAABC Standards of Practice, https://iaabc.org/standards-of-practice; Joint Standards of Practice and Professional Code of Ethics 2025, https://iaabcfoundation.org/standards/; Pet Professional Guild Guiding Principles, https://petprofessionalguild.com/Pet-Professional-Guild-Response-To-Joint-Industry-Code-of-Conduct; Animal Behaviour and Training Council, https://abtc.org.uk; UK Dog Behaviour and Training Charter, https://www.dogcharter.uk/; Initiative for Force-Free Dog Training, Code of Conduct, https://www.forcefree-dogtraining.org/force-free-trainers/code-of-conduct/; CCPDT Electronic Training Collar Position Statement, https://www.ccpdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Electronic-Training-Collar-Position-Statement.pdf; CCPDT Prohibited Practices Policy 2025, https://ccpdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/CCPDT-Prohibited-Practices-Policy-2025.pdf; petition “Certified Trainers Demand Humane Standards: End CCPDT’s Support of Harmful Tools,” https://change.org/p/certified-trainers-demand-humane-standards-end-ccpdt-s-support-of-harmful-tools; National Parks Board (Singapore), media release of 26 July 2025, https://www.nparks.gov.sg/-/media/avs/news/media-release----new-advisory-discourages-dog-owners-from-using-shock-and-prong-collars.pdf; International Association of Canine Professionals, “Legislative Update: New York” graphic circulated to members, reproduced in full in the article and quoted verbatim.

This article is educational and reflects each organization’s published position as of the date accessed. It is not veterinary or legal advice. If your dog is showing aggression, work with a qualified force-free behavior professional and your veterinarian.

© Will Bangura · Phoenix Dog Training®

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