"There is a safe way to use prong collars and e-collars if you know what you're doing." This is the most common defense of aversive training equipment, and it is worth answering directly because it sounds reasonable. The honest answer is no — and this post explains why the credentialed scientific community has rejected the "safe use" framing on the available evidence.
What the "safe use" argument actually claims
The argument has three pieces:
1. The tool itself is neutral; only misuse causes harm.
2. A skilled, experienced trainer can use the tool at low intensity in narrow circumstances without causing welfare problems.
3. Therefore, banning or rejecting the tool outright is overcorrection.
This argument is internally consistent. It is also empirically wrong. The peer-reviewed welfare literature has tested it and found that even when the tool is used as the manufacturer and the most experienced trainers recommend, measurable harm occurs and equivalent training outcomes are available without it.
What the research actually shows about "skilled use"
The most rigorous study on this question is Cooper et al. (2014), which compared three groups: shock-collar training by industry-recommended professional trainers, the same trainers using only positive-reinforcement methods, and a third positive-reinforcement-only group. The results:
- The shock-collar group did not learn faster.
- The shock-collar group did not retain the trained behavior better.
- The shock-collar group showed significantly more stress signals during training.
- A subset of the shock-collar dogs showed lasting fear-related behaviors.
The trainers in the shock group were the industry's best. They were following the manufacturer's instructions. They were operating under the "safe use" framing. The dogs were still measurably worse off.
The same pattern holds in the prong-collar literature, the head-halter aversive literature, and across other aversive-tool studies. The tool does its job — pain or pressure suppresses behavior — but the suppression comes with welfare cost and produces no benefit over reward-based alternatives.
Why "I have used it for 20 years without problems" is not evidence
Trainers who have used aversive tools for years often describe their dogs as "fine" — happy, well-trained, well-adjusted. Three things to know about that observation:
- Suppression looks like compliance. A dog who has learned that pulling, lunging, or barking causes pain stops doing those behaviors. The dog is not "fine"; the behavior is suppressed. Take the equipment off and the behaviors typically return, often with new fear-based responses on top.
- Subtle stress is often invisible to the handler. The peer-reviewed studies show that dogs with measurable cortisol elevations and stress body language often look "okay" to the trainer in the moment.
- Survivorship bias. The dogs who failed under aversive training — the ones who developed handler aggression, generalized anxiety, or fear-based reactivity — are often surrendered, returned, or euthanized. The trainer remembers the dogs who tolerated the tool.
None of this is a personal attack on individual trainers. It is a statement about what the available evidence shows when this question is studied systematically.
The use-cases the "safe use" advocates lean on hardest
Three specific cases come up most often. Each has an evidence-based alternative:
1. Off-leash recall in high-risk environments. The peer-reviewed literature shows that long-line training combined with a reward-based recall protocol produces equal or better recall than shock-collar training, with no welfare cost. See the behavioral solutions guide. For dogs in genuinely high-risk environments (active wildlife, livestock, cliffs), the right answer is a long line until the recall is rock solid, not a shock collar.
2. Severe reactivity and aggression. A common claim is that shock collars are the "last resort" for dogs who would otherwise be euthanized for aggression. The evidence does not support this. Aggression cases are the highest-risk for fallout from aversive training — the shock or prong correction frequently gets associated with the trigger (other dog, child, stranger), making the aggression worse. The right referral is a DACVB veterinary behaviorist and an IAABC-CDBC behavior consultant working in coordination, often with anti-anxiety medication. This combination has a strong evidence base; aversive equipment in aggression cases does not.
3. Strong-pulling large dogs. A properly fitted front-clip Y-harness plus a head halter, paired with a real loose-leash protocol, manages and resolves leash pulling in essentially every case. There is no dog physically too strong for this combination plus competent training. There are dogs with handlers who do not want to do the training work, which is a different problem.
The "but it worked for my dog" testimonials
Individual testimonials about aversive equipment are common, and they are consistently three things at once:
- True, in that the behavior the equipment was used to suppress did stop.
- Not evidence that no harm was done — measurable harm in welfare studies often goes unnoticed by handlers.
- Not evidence that the same outcome could not have been achieved with safer methods — the controlled studies consistently show that it could have been.
The plural of anecdote is not data, and the plural of "my dog seemed fine" is not "the welfare evidence is overstated."
What to do if you have been told the safe-use framing
1. Read why prong collars are harmful to dogs and why e-collars and shock collars are harmful to animals for the full clinical case.
2. Switch to humane equipment — see alternatives to prong collars.
3. Find a credentialed reward-based trainer who does not use aversive equipment — see what to look for in a dog trainer.
4. If you have already been working with an aversive-tool trainer, see what to do if you hired a bad dog trainer.
5. For the legal picture in your jurisdiction, see are prong collars illegal?.
Where PawMates Pro fits in
Shelters running PawMates Pro document each dog's prior aversive-tool exposure on the pet profile when it is part of the surrender or intake history. That context travels into the adopter's dashboard so the next trainer or vet has a real baseline for what the dog has already been through. For dogs going through foster care before adoption, the foster's observations on what worked at home are part of the same record.
The credentialed scientific community has answered the safe-use question. The honest answer is no. The right move is to listen.
For more adopter resources, browse the PawMates blog.