The Netherlands has banned the use of shock collars on domestic pets – effective from July 2020 – in a move to improve animal welfare. Those who utilize shock collars after 1 July 2020 could face a fine of up to 20,000 euros ($22,437) or even a prison sentence of three years.
This banning of the devices was announced by the country’s Agriculture and Nature Minister Carola Schouten, who says there is no evidence that shock collars achieve better results in behavioral training.
“The animal suffers from it, it hurts, and if that is not necessary, we shouldn’t do it,” she told the Netherlands Times.
Shock collars are devices used to give electric shocks of varying duration and intensity to the neck of a dog. The Netherlands has deemed the device “a serious, inescapable violation of the welfare of dogs”, which are predominantly used in training sessions.
David Barritt, chief campaigner for Network for Animals applauded the Netherlands move: “Other countries should follow this example. Shocking dogs is inhumane and should never be done.”
English
Afrikaans
Albanian
Amharic
Arabic
Armenian
Azerbaijani
Basque
Belarusian
Bengali
Bosnian
Bulgarian
Catalan
Cebuano
Chichewa
Chinese (Simplified)
Chinese (Traditional)
Corsican
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Esperanto
Estonian
Filipino
Finnish
French
Frisian
Galician
Georgian
German
Greek
Gujarati
Haitian Creole
Hausa
Hawaiian
Hebrew
Hindi
Hmong
Hungarian
Icelandic
Igbo
Indonesian
Irish
Italian
Japanese
Javanese
Kannada
Kazakh
Khmer
Korean
Kurdish (Kurmanji)
Kyrgyz
Lao
Latin
Latvian
Lithuanian
Luxembourgish
Macedonian
Malagasy
Malay
Malayalam
Maltese
Maori
Marathi
Mongolian
Myanmar (Burmese)
Nepali
Norwegian
Pashto
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Punjabi
Romanian
Russian
Samoan
Scottish Gaelic
Serbian
Sesotho
Shona
Sindhi
Sinhala
Slovak
Slovenian
Somali
Spanish
Sudanese
Swahili
Swedish
Tajik
Tamil
Telugu
Thai
Turkish
Ukrainian
Urdu
Uzbek
Vietnamese
Welsh
Xhosa
Yiddish
Yoruba
Zulu