Ogmore illegal shock collar dog owner gets £2,000 fine (Wales)

BBC ^ | July 18, 2011 | BBC Staff

[KyGeezer]

A dog owner has been fined £2,000 after becoming the first to be prosecuted in Britain for using an illegal electric shock collar.

Wales banned the devices last year. Phillip Pook, 48, from Ogmore-by-Sea, Vale of Glamorgan, admitted using the collar, to stop his border collie jumping over a wall.

But he had denied he had been warned the collar was illegal.

It was discovered on his dog, found roaming on a beach in December 2010.

Pook was also ordered to pay £1,000 in costs, when he was sentenced.

He used the collar to try to stop the collie jumping over a high wall surrounding his property, Bridgend magistrates heard.

The court was told the collar emitted its electric shock when the dog wearing it went near a specific fence.

They also heard that the dog, which kept escaping, was known at a local kennels as "the dog with the shock collar".

[KyGeezer]

As far as I'm concerned, the shock collars worn by a couple of dogs I know give them the freedom to roam their spacious yards. They wouldn't have that freedom without them. I'm sure the homeowners would never put up a mesh fence around their expensive upscale homes.

I know a mut named Mattie. She is a big fine dog. She knows where the borders are and she never gets shocked. One of her duties is to retrieve the newspaper every morning. The collar is removed and she races the 50 yds. down the drive and through the iron gate. After a brief inspection of area and leaving a marker if necessary, she races back with the newspaper and gets a treat.

[Moose4]

I guess the Welsh authorities and the UK government would consider it more humane for the collie to jump its wall and get run over in the road outside.

}:-)4

[ConservaTexan]

Gubmint knows best.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Doggie ping

[LibWhacker]

Government: We’re not perfect yet, but someday we will be — the day we regulate how you interact with every molecule in your life!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I have used a “buzz” collar while training dogs. No shock; just a loud “baaa.” noise. It’s just as effective.

[tsomer]

It seems that English-speaking people world-wide are genetically predisposed to insanity.

How else explain this?

What would they do if the man didn’t have property they could threaten?

Seize the dog instead? Where would they keep him? In some humane kennel somewhere, I guess. Then they could threaten euthanize the dog until the subject paid.

[Malone LaVeigh]

I guess the Welsh authorities and the UK government would consider it more humane for the collie to jump its wall and get run over in the road outside.

And if it causes a traffic accident involving human injury, I guess the owner will be charged with that as well.

[Joe 6-pack]

WOOOF!

The Doggie Ping list is for FReepers who would like to be notified of threads relating to all things canid. If you would like to join the Doggie Ping Pack (or be unleashed from it), FReemail me.

[muawiyah]

Seriously now, so much drama.

The problem is that the man's shock collar didn't actually work!

He should have used that as evidence that the dog wasn't actually being shocked.

Have the prosecutor bring out a "REAL MAN'S SHOCK COLLAR" for the dog and have that puppy jumpin' and gettin' every time the prosecutor hit the zap button.

Like a Monte Python skit.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Without my shock collar my dog once I throw him the ball once never brings it back. End result - dog doesn’t get to run and exercise. With the shock collar he gets the exercise he needs. Every AM he willingly stands while I put the collar on him. I have a feeling that the discomfort level is equivalent to a mosquito bite. So what is the humane answer? Sure I’m sure there are abuses but in my case I know my dog is much better off having that collar.

[6ppc]

I have been thinking about getting a shock collar for our Maltese. He is a yapper and barks constantly at anything and everything. I can go down to the basement for one minute, and when I come back up stairs he goes ballistic. Joggers on the street, cars driving by, leaving him in the camper (even when it's just a few minutes). This dog is driving me nuts and I'm looking for a solution. I really don't think a buzz or spray collar would work, and whatever I get will have to be automatic (i.e. goes off when he barks).

HELP!

[kaylar]

Y'know, it's a funny thing, but bizarre restrictions on pet ownership are one of the things that made me (slowly) realize I am not a liberal.

Back when RR was president, I hated him and accepted all the liberal talking points of the day, mostly because I figured out by media osmosis that those points were accepted by all the "smart" people...And who doesn't want to consider oneself automatically intelligent, simply by believing in X instead of Y on topic____?

And then I read a glowing article on Sweden, which was then being promulgated as the World's Utopia. And I'm pretty sure the article I read was published by the Reader's Digest, to which my parents had a subscription (that magazine may have been conservative back in the 1950s, but it already wasn't by the 1980s, in my experience.) Anyhow, the article laid out all the reasons why Sweden Was The Best Place on Earth If Not The Universe, and one of the reasons was

Spaying and neutering dogs was banned.

Owners were expected to keep female dogs in heat inside, to prevent unwanted litters.

The rationale behind this law was,"it encouraged responsible pet ownership" and I'm pretty sure that was EXACTLY the way it was phrased.

Bear in mind I considered myself a leftist then-more radical than a liberal-and yet, reading that I felt a disquieting emotion in my stomach and on the back of my neck which I could not identify then, but which I later realized was pure rage.

The law gave the Swedish government the right to treat grown adults as children (Isn't "it will encourage responsibility" precisely why the grownups give children allowances?) and that really bothered me.

(I felt the same rage when I read in the article that the government had created communal dining halls for apartment buildings....And that these halls had so encouraged socialization and cohesion in the apartment dwellers that the government had then made their usage mandatory instead of voluntary.Not every night, only a few times a month IIRC...But being told as a grownup how you WILL spend even one or two nights a month by your government is just too intrusive....And for an introvert like me, who finds people in groups draining, it's The Worst Nightmare Ever.

So in retrospect, a stupid* Swedish law banning spaying is what started my journey from knee jerk liberal to small government (but strong national defense) conservative/libertarian . It took a few more years (I voted for WJC the first time ) and it was an obsession with the Civil war that finally killed off the last of my HS/college liberalism (the state's rights argument on behalf on local self government was too obviously correct-a strong central government was too intrusive even then)...But it was seeing how (over and over and over) it was *Liberals* who wanted to intrude in my private life more than conservatives , and how *liberals* were the ones who wanted to strengthen the government to intrude into people's privacy (in the name of "fairness" and "enlightened opinion", of course) that did the trick.

*And it WAS a stupid law, that years later it was revealed led to a rate of uterine cancers in canines EIGHT TIMES the US average, because we spay our female pets much more frequently.

[jospehm20]

Citronella collar worked for my dog.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA07601D3697&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Dogs+-+Collars++Leashes++++Tags-_-Premier+Pet+Products-_-9SIA07601D3697

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Collars that buzz loudly when the dog barks are available. I saw them for sale in Full Cry magazine.

[LibWhacker]

I’ve been using one of those citronella collars to stop the “incessant” barking that’s got one of our new neighbors whining his head off (have owned our home here for 20 years, have dozens of neighbors nearby and NONE has ever complained — until this new renter came along).

When our girl barks, the collar releases a puff of citrus spray out in front of her face... She sees it, hears it, smells it, probably tastes it and feels it tickle the whiskers on her chin. Stops her cold in her tracks.

We’ve thought about going with the adjustable shock collars (which can be adjusted to give anything from a barely perceptible tingle to quite a sharp shock), but for now the citrus collar is working perfectly and seems the more humane option.

I really hate libs; they think they are the only ones who are qualified to feel compassion for my dog. I’d like to show them the compassion my steel-toed boots could heap upon their tiny, shriveled up testicles.

[Myrddin]

It seems that English-speaking people world-wide are genetically predisposed to insanity.

And Arabic speakers are predisposed to terrorism and murder. Seriously, that is a pretty broad brush. Besides, they may not be English speakers. They might be Welsh speakers. As much as I enjoy speaking Welsh, I'm eternally dismayed by their embrace of socialism.

What would they do if the man didn’t have property they could threaten?

There's always imprisonment, torture, execution or exile. Lots of options available to tyrannical government.

[RW_Whacko]

I caught my Cocker Spaniel up and about to go over our wall. Estimates were over $2500 to make the wall taller. I got a shock collar for $139 and put up contractor flags as a border for that half of the yard. One shock and a few buzzes and problem solved. Now she won't go anywhere near that wall.
I had previously, several years back, lost a Beagle that went over that same wall, into traffic.
Problem solved and saves the new puppies life. I think thats pretty humanitarian.

[AnAmericanMother]

Here ya go:

Gun Dog Supply: bark collars

I've dealt with these folks and they are honest and have pretty good prices, not cut-rate but then they have very liberal return policies and you can talk to the owner.

I have the Tri-Tronics Bark Limiter, it's adjustable to 5 different settings and has a "sleep" mode so you don't run down the battery. I also have the Tri-Tronics training (remote) collars for all three of my Labs. Tri-Tronics, SportDog and DogTra are the only collars I would recommend, I have had the cheaper ones and they don't work well and after awhile they don't work at all.

They work great, I don't know if citronella would work for my girls 'cause they're pretty hard headed.

As for those idiot nanny staters in Wales: bbbpppppptt!

[thethirddegree]

I wonder if they would work on the clown in the WH and on members of Congress.