Dog owner fined £2,000 for using electric dog collar to train his border collie

By LUKE SALKELD

Pook used the collar on his border collie because it kept escaping from his home in Ogmore-by-Sea, near Bridgend

A dog owner who fitted an electric shock collar to his pet has been fined £2,000 in the first case of its kind.

Phillip Pook’s Border Collie, Dougie, got a shock every time he approached a fence surrounding the house.

The dog repeatedly tried to escape and was found wandering alone on a nearby beach wearing the illegal collar.

The couple who spotted him contacted the Dogs’ Trust charity, which traced the owner from a microchip implanted in the animal.


Phillip Pook has become the first person to be fined for using an electric shock dog collar on his pet


Electric shock collars are hugely popular across Europe and the U.S. with an estimated 500,000 in use in the UK, mostly on dogs but also on cats.

Pook, 48, is the first person to be convicted of using the device after Wales banned their use last March – the first European country to do so.

The collars, which cost between £100 and £200, are made of heavy-duty plastic and contain a battery pack and two metal prongs which rest against the animal’s neck.

Owners use them for training purposes and to try to stop pets straying out of a garden.

When the pet gets close to the boundary, the collar emits a warning sound.
If the animal ignores it and tries to leave the garden, the collar gives off a shock.

Pook admitted an offence but said he was unaware the collars were illegal in Wales.


The electric collars are illegal in Wales but currently legal to use in the rest of the country - but this is currently under debate by the Government


In the first case of its kind, David Prosser, prosecuting, told magistrates in Bridgend, South Wales, that the dog had a habit of escaping from its owner. He said it was known at a local kennels as ‘the dog with the shock collar’.

The court heard that a young couple found the animal roaming a beach near Pook’s home in Ogmore-by-Sea.

Bench chairman Caroline Naysmith told him: ‘We accept that you attached the collar with good intentions and when you first did so it was not illegal.

‘But you knew the law had changed and you continued to attach the collar anyway.’
Pook was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £1,000 court costs after admitting using the illegal dog collar under animal welfare laws.


source :dailymail