The Tasmanian government in australia is planning on banning the use of prong
collars and they are developing amendments to the welfare act in
consultation with the rspca the rspca Tasmania ceo Jan Davis recently issued a
statement on their website discussing why they plan to help the government ban
prong collars and makes a number of claims that prong collars are proven to
cause damage according to science some of the injuries listed by jan in this
statement are eye issues neurological issues thyroid skin organ and numerous
other issues she claims that science shows that prone collars cause emotional
damage and that positive reinforcement training has been shown to be more
effective than the use of prong collars as there’s no reference list on this
statement i reached out to Jan Davis and asked for the reference list that she
used when making this statement she got back to me with a link to the rspca
australia’s website which also contains their own position statement on the use
of prong collars and she said that while she hasn’t gone through the references on
the rspca australia’s website she does believe that that was the only source
for her comments rather than assuming that the sciences sound i went through
their reference list and had a look at each of the four citations that they
list which they claim show that prong collars cause emotional and physical
harm and this is what i found its all bad science.