Hunting dogs: Continuation of electronic training collars

Hunting Dogs: Continuation on electronic training collars

Hunting dogs: Prosegugio Lombardia expresses its opinion on the use of electronic collars for dog training.

Even in the face of recent news stories of just past week, which involved a hunter for using the collar of training with electronic impulses to train one's dog during the hunting activity, a serene, and very intellectually honest, evaluation on this very delicate issue is considered at least necessary. In contemporary society, nothing has become the object of psycho-social attention like the question of animal welfare and, by contrast, the cases of animal abuse, which since 2004 have been sanctioned as a crime, are greatly irritating to the collective sensitivity. Hereby we want to highlight that the mistreatment of animals is a reprehensible fact, but its existence cannot exclusively be based on the sensitivity of people: emotional perceptibility which by its nature is contextualized, and as we all know, changeable to temporal and economic conditions, for example, just think of the human-animal relationship in the early 900s.

On the other hand, giving an indisputable definition to veterinary medical concepts, including those of well-being and mistreatment, closely linked to animal health, is a really difficult, if not impossible, undertaking. In fact, these clinical aspects must be proven on the basis of a scientific report produced by professionals in the field of veterinary science. And by now, without too much sarcasm, we should be accustomed to the results received by the countless technical advice required by the Judiciary to reach a judgment: not infrequently the expert reports on the same case arrive at conclusions that are anything but univocal ...

After this necessary premise, it is easy to understand how the question relating to the possible repercussions on the health of the dog deriving from the use of the electronic pulse collar for training purposes is not easy to read, indeed we find ourselves walking a path, scientifically little known, and therefore, very slippery jurisprudentially speaking. On various websites and on as many journalist newspapers, articles often appear that report convictions for animal abuse against owners who have used the electric collar, but it is good to frame some fixed points of the story. In 2006, in Rome, the Regional Administrative Court of Lazio annulled for lack of suitable technical assessments, an order with which the Ministry of Health intended to prohibit the use of the electric collar in the training of dogs: hence the electronic collar it can be sold and used throughout the Italian territory.

Last December, the Court of Cassation punished anyone who used the electronic collar for training purposes, not for the most serious crime of animal abuse, but for the slightest crime - from the point of view of punishment - of "abandonment of animals ”, not recognizing the element of willful misconduct in the conduct of the trainer who used this tool. Still on the subject, some of this year's rulings issued by the Criminal Court of Bologna saw trainers who had correctly used the electronic collar fully acquitted, due to the non-existence of the fact.

It is not at all out of place, with a good dose of pragmatism, to make these two simple interrogative reflections: how is it possible to demonstrate the will to want to harm a dog during the training activity, if the trainer uses the tool as manufactured and according to the manufacturer's instructions? Furthermore, it is not acceptable that a State, on the one hand, allows the production, sale, possession and use of electric collars, and on the other hand penalizes their use. These questions are almost paradoxical but, at the same time, unfortunately, very real. But the answers invoked are to be considered necessary - as some might argue - not only for dog lovers, or hunters, or for the Supervisory Bodies, or for Veterinarians, but solely and above all to safeguard the well-being of our canine auxiliaries during training activities.

Questions which, as already mentioned in recent years, have sharpened with the growing feeling of society towards animals, in particular those of affection, to which hunting dogs also fully belong, to find an answer must necessarily continue to deal with the technical evolution of electronic collars, with veterinary medical science, and by connection, with the judgments that have occurred in different degrees of judgment on the matter. In conclusion, given the cardinal points referred to up to now on the question, still far from free from prejudices, the correct use of the electronic impulse collar for training purposes is to be considered lawful.

The President of the Lombardy Region Pro Segugio

(November 19, 2014)