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Animal Welfare Bill

I have never used an electric shock collar, but I have been through a course of Kennel Club behaviour training, because a few years ago my dog won the Westminster ““woofer of the year”” competition and you then have to appear at Crufts and demonstrate how well the dog behaves so that it can receive a small certificate that states that it is a beautifully behaved dog. A brief acquaintance with my dog was not sufficient to alert the judges to its character, so they gave it the award; but soon afterwards, they realised that it required training, so I was sent to their approved and best trainer in west London. We went through an extensive period, a couple of months, of reward-based training. We appeared at Crufts, we did not get the reward and the dog has not behaved any better since under any form of inducement, except that, being a fairly tough terrier, he went through the tup method of aversion to sheep—which has been successful. The idea that behaviour training will deal with the type of misbehaviour that my former noble friend, but my current friend, Lord Pearson of Rannoch calls a dog with a ““strong character””, or that training is available at a reasonable cost to most citizens, is unrealistic. A properly used electric training collar achieves something that cannot be done reasonably in other ways. Although it can be misused, so can many other things. I grew up in a family that believed in beating dogs—I suspect that most families believed in beating dogs and, indeed, women and walnut trees from time to time. We can have regulations that cover the way that one can administer pain or discipline in training a dog, but to pretend that you can train a strong-willed dog without that sort of application of force is just lulu.