LEGISLATION + POLICY
Humane Dog Training Law + Police Exemptions
My bottom line
Police and military exemptions must be removed from dog training regulation bills. If a humane standard applies to civilian trainers, it should apply when the trainer works for the government too. A separate use-of-force law may be necessary when an agency deploys a dog against a person, but that is not a reason to place government dog trainers outside the humane-training rule. No exemptions. No excuses.
Police dogs also raise a second question that trainer licensing alone cannot answer: why are police using dogs to search, threaten, bite, restrain, or injure people at all? My position is abolition of police K-9 units, including drug-detection and patrol or apprehension programs, alongside investment in civilian search-and-rescue capacity and nonviolent, community-based approaches to safety.
What this page covers
This is not every dog-training bill everywhere. It is the legislation I am following and speaking about. Each entry shows when I last checked the official record, and I will clearly mark anything that needs another look.
- I start with my position. Then I show what the measure says and where it stands.
- Dates matter here. Older posts refer to the bill versions available when I made them.
- Read the official text. I include bill links so you can check it yourself.
Active-bill status last checked September 5, 2026. This page is public education, not legal advice.
On this page
- What I’m watching: New Jersey A4206 and A4207
- Three different policy questions
- Selected enacted laws and their exceptions
- Pending policy and public campaigns
- My original police-exemption and abolition analysis
- Why licensing can institutionalize harm
- Evidence, sources, guidance, and deeper history
- What I am asking lawmakers to do
WHAT I’M WATCHING
New Jersey A4206 and A4207
WHY I’M WATCHING THESE BILLS
What worries me is not regulation.
What worries me is weak regulation being treated like strong regulation.
What worries me is a law that makes the public think dogs are protected when the actual standard still leaves room for coercion.
I discussed both bills in this March 22 video. The links below take you to the current official records.
A4206: Licensing built around CCPDT
My analysis: “The goal should not be to license the industry as it exists.” I oppose A4206 because it would put CCPDT at the center of New Jersey’s examination and continuing-education system without first creating an enforceable welfare floor or banning tools and methods that harm dogs.
What A4206 would do: A4206 would require licensure for paid dog training, create a nine-member Dog Trainer Board of Examiners, require 300 supervised hours for many applicants, and require an examination. The board, in consultation with CCPDT, would adopt a CCPDT exam or a substantially similar one and approve continuing education in consultation with CCPDT.
What it leaves out: The introduced text does not define humane training, name prohibited tools or methods, or create a substantive dog-welfare floor. It professionalizes the field while assigning a central role to CCPDT, which I have called an “outlier extremist organization.”
Current status: The official record still shows A4206 as introduced February 19, 2026 and referred to the Assembly Regulated Professions Committee. The record identifies S4576 as an identical bill; S4576’s page currently shows a sponsor and the identical-bill relationship but no posted action or bill text.
A4207: Credentialing standards plus police and military carve-outs
My July 27 analysis: A law that protects dogs from abuse except when police are doing it is not protecting dogs. It is protecting police. Our profession cannot reject fear, pain, and forced compliance in private training while codifying an exemption for the institution with the greatest power to use them against the public. When unchecked state power crosses into our profession, we have to hold the line. Welfare professionals advocate for the welfare of ALL animals. We do not negotiate with oppressive institutions.
Watch the Instagram post or watch it on YouTube.
What A4207 would do: A4207 would create a licensing board and require covered trainers to hold approved certifications or permits. It ties approved programs and discipline to standards associated with APDT, CCPDT, and IAABC and defines “industry recognized standards” as the versions effective January 1, 2019. It excludes active military dog training, active law-enforcement K-9 training, penal-institution programs, and certain AKC- or UKC-affiliated member services from its definition of dog training.
What it leaves out: A4207 does not itself ban shock collars, prong collars, or other aversive methods. It would build a state licensing system around private standards fixed in 2019 while excluding police and military dog training from that system altogether.
What I want lawmakers to do: Remove the police and military carve-outs and replace aversive-tolerant language with an enforceable welfare floor. Until then, oppose the bill in its current form. No exemptions. No excuses.
Current status: The official record still shows A4207 as introduced February 19, 2026 and referred to the Assembly Regulated Professions Committee. The current version remains “As introduced.” It has not been enacted.
A1212 and S3814: Yes, I covered them
I also covered A1212 and S3814, the earlier 2024–2025 proposals. My July 2024 police-K-9 video gives the broader abolitionist context, although it was not a bill-specific video.
What happened to A1212 and S3814: These were separate 2024–2025 proposals, not one identical pair. Both excluded police-related dog training, but their standards differed: A1212 incorporated an NCCA/credentialing and 2019 LIMA framework, while S3814 directed the proposed board to adopt a code that would preclude aversive training methods. Neither advanced beyond introduction. The current A4207 record identifies A1212 as its last-session bill.
Three different policy questions
1. Who may sell dog training services?
Licensing can set qualifications, continuing education, complaint procedures, and professional discipline. Its reach depends on who the law defines as a trainer and who it excludes.
2. Which devices or methods may be used?
A rule may prohibit one device, several devices, or any method that causes a defined level of pain or distress. It may apply to use, possession, sale, professional services, or only a specific setting. These are not interchangeable.
3. When may an institution deploy a dog against a person?
This is a use-of-force question. It includes authorization to deploy, warnings, proportionality, bite duration, handler control, medical care, incident reporting, public data, and accountability when someone is harmed. A trainer license does not answer those questions.
Detection work, search and rescue, and patrol or apprehension also have different purposes and risks. Lawmakers should stop treating every working dog as one category.
ENACTED LAW
What selected enacted laws actually say
These are the laws I am following most closely. They do not all protect dogs in the same way, and several make exceptions I oppose.
My analysis: In my June 25, 2026 video, I called the European measure’s police and military exception a “huge legal loophole” and a “massive double standard they just hid in plain sight.”
Watch my Instagram video or watch it on YouTube. That video covered the text then before lawmakers. The European Union entry below covers the final regulation adopted in August.
Wales
Current rule: The Animal Welfare (Electronic Collars) (Wales) Regulations 2010 prohibit attaching an electronic collar capable of administering an electric shock to a cat or dog. The definition includes remote, automatic, containment, and anti-bark functions that can shock.
Where it applies: Wales banned shock collars in 2010. That ban does not extend across the rest of the United Kingdom.
Germany
Current rule: Section 2(5) of the federal Animal Welfare Dog Ordinance prohibits using prong collars or other means painful to dogs in training, education, or exercise.
Service-dog note: The rule states a general prohibition. In a 2025 federal response, the government said it saw no need for a service-dog exception and that federal service-dog training and deployment follow animal-welfare law and the Dog Ordinance.
Denmark
Current rule: Denmark’s 2025 dog-welfare regulation prohibits remote-controlled or automatic dog-worn devices that cause electric shock or other substantial discomfort. It also prohibits collars with specified inward-facing sharp, pointed, or metal projections.
Exception I oppose: A narrowly specified collar with blunt metal bends or projections up to the stated length may be used on service dogs of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service. Denmark makes this exception for its security service. I oppose it.
Norway
Current rule: Norway’s regulation applies to electrical current in all forms of dog education, training, and use and generally prohibits equipment that can expose a dog to electric current.
Exception: It permits necessary aversion training to prevent chasing grazing animals, domestic reindeer, and hoofed game when the trainer meets the regulation’s competency requirements. Norway therefore still permits electric aversion training in these limited circumstances.
Austria
Current rule: Official Austrian government guidance says pain-causing collars and electrical or chemical training devices may not be used.
Exception: Specially trained people may use coral-style collars, with proportionality, when training service dogs of security authorities or the Austrian Armed Forces.
Read the official Austrian dog-keeping guidance and legal sources
France
Current rule: Article 30 of a 2025 ministerial order prohibits carrying out covered animal education, training, or public-presentation activities with conditions, methods, or accessories that can cause injury, suffering, pain, stress, or fear.
Where it applies: This rule covers the activities named in the order. Separate French law still authorizes certified bite-work in specified canine-selection, surveillance, guarding, and cash-transport contexts.
European Union Regulation (EU) 2026/1818
My analysis: The police and military exception is a “huge legal loophole” and a “massive double standard they just hid in plain sight.”
Current legal status: The final regulation was published August 10, 2026, entered into force August 30, 2026, and generally applies from August 31, 2028. Article 18 requires covered operators to avoid handling practices that cause pain or suffering, including applying electric current, using prong collars, and using choke collars without a safety stop. It then permits Member States to grant exemptions for dogs intended for military, police, or customs services.
My position: The exemption is unacceptable. This is not clean progress. The regulation leaves police, military, and customs dogs outside protections that should apply to every dog.
NOT YET LAW
England: consultation promised, no current ban
My analysis: Lawmakers are confronting an aversive-device “profit machine.” In my May 28, 2026 post, I explain how organizations including AKC and IACP lobby against bans and defend punishment-based training.
Watch my Instagram post or watch it on YouTube. As of September 5, 2026, England still has no ban.
England’s 2023 draft electronic-collar regulations did not take effect. The United Kingdom government’s current Animal Welfare Strategy for England, published in December 2025, says it will gather views and evidence and consult later in this Parliament on whether to ban electric shock collars.
That is a policy commitment, not enacted law. It applies to England, not the entire United Kingdom. Wales has had its own enacted rule since 2010.
Organizational campaigns and reporting
These reports and campaigns help document the history, harms, and political fight. They are background and advocacy sources, not the law itself.
My analysis of IACP and CCPDT
I have called IACP “the most problematic organization in dog training,” said its board contains no canine behavior scientist, and described it as a trade organization led by people with a direct financial interest in defending punishment-based training. I have called CCPDT an “outlier extremist organization” and accused it of refusing to correct “blatant misinformation” about AVSAB. In the posts below, I explain exactly why I have made those accusations.
Royal Kennel Club campaign on electric shock collars
The Royal Kennel Club campaigns for an electric-shock-collar ban and summarizes the different legal positions in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Its campaign page is background and advocacy; the official sources above show what the law currently says.
Montreal SPCA explainer
The Montreal SPCA says Montreal’s 2020 municipal by-law prohibited electric collars and choke chains, including spiked versions. Its article provides useful background and humane-training guidance; the official by-law remains the source for current legal status.
ACLU of Southern California report on police attack dogs
The ACLU of Southern California report draws on official data, policies, public records, legal filings, and reported incidents in California to document the harms of police attack dogs.
Historical background
- The K-9 Corps: The Use of Dogs in Police Work (1961) is historical scholarship, not a current legal source.
- History of the United States Police Canine Association is the organization’s own account of its history, not independent evidence or law.
Watch: why police dogs require a bigger policy conversation
My video looks beyond training tools and asks what it means to use dogs as instruments of police power.
MY ORIGINAL ANALYSIS
My original police-exemption and abolition analysis
Below is my original argument about police exemptions and abolition. A current legal update follows it.
Lawmakers Are Protecting a Legacy of Jim Crow Brutality by Giving Police K-9 Units a Free Pass From Humane Training Laws.
Legislation aimed at regulating dog training and banning outdated methods is long overdue, but many of these efforts include a disturbing trend: they exempt police K-9 trainers.
This is not only hypocritical but sets a dangerous precedent, shielding the worst offenders while imposing stricter rules on the general public.
If a law is meant to prevent animal mistreatment, then it should apply to everyone. Yet, in multiple states, proposed dog training licensure laws specifically exclude police and military trainers from oversight.
New Jersey’s A1212/S3814, for example, explicitly exempts K-9 units from compliance, meaning law enforcement trainers are not required to follow the same evidence-based, force-free methods as civilian trainers.
This isn’t normal. Countries like the UK, Germany, Norway, and France have passed laws banning coercive dog training methods, including shock collars and prong collars, without making special exemptions for law enforcement.
These offer us a precedent, showing that dog training can be regulated without letting police off the hook.
The fact that police carve-outs do not exist elsewhere shows these exemptions are not necessary, they are political concessions to law enforcement.
In fact, the existence of these exemptions is a blatant admission that police dog training would not pass ethical scrutiny.
If police K-9 training methods were humane and science-based, there would be no need to exclude them from oversight.
Instead, these carve-outs function as a preemptive shield against accountability, ensuring that K-9 handlers can continue using coercion and force-based methods with no consequences.
This reflects a larger pattern of ‘police exceptionalism’ where laws meant to increase accountability don’t actually apply to law enforcement.
We’ve seen this time and again, from qualified immunity protecting officers from misconduct to union contracts making disciplinary action nearly impossible.
Now, we see it in dog training laws, where police are handed a free pass to use outdated, harmful methods under the guise of public safety.
If lawmakers genuinely believed that these training methods were harmful (and they are), why allow police to continue using them? The answer is simple: these carve-outs exist because police demanded them.
They exist to protect law enforcement’s ability to use violence unchecked, whether against dogs or people.
Beyond the hypocrisy of exempting K-9 units from humane standards, we need to ask: Why are we using police dogs at all?
Detection dogs are a cornerstone of the racist War on Drugs. Many K-9s are trained to detect drugs, despite evidence showing they are wildly inaccurate and prone to handler bias.
Studies have found false alerts in over 50% of traffic stops, disproportionately targeting Black and Brown drivers. The presence of a police dog alone is often enough justification to escalate a search, even when no drugs are found.
The use of drug detection dogs is not about public safety, it’s about expanding police power under the pretense of legitimacy.
Search and rescue dogs are often contracted out rather than trained by police.
These dogs are typically trained by private organizations or civilian professionals who specialize in disaster response and missing persons cases. They do not need to be part of law enforcement.
In fact, many independent search-and-rescue groups already train dogs without coercion or force-based methods, proving that K-9 training does not require police oversight.
Attack-trained police dogs escalate violence. K-9s are disproportionately used in protests, low-level arrests, and routine stops, resulting in horrific injuries, permanent disfigurement, and even deaths.
The use of police dogs to patrol crowds and control suspects is a direct legacy of colonial rule, slavery patrols, and segregation enforcement.
Modern policing does not need attack-trained dogs. Other nations have successfully phased out or severely limited their K-9 programs, instead investing in de-escalation tactics, mental health crisis intervention teams, and community-based safety models.
If we care about both dogs and people, we need to be pushing toward the abolition of K-9 units entirely, not just minor reforms to how they are trained.
This is what we deserve:
Police exemptions must be removed from all dog training regulation bills. If humane training is required, it must apply to everyone.
The public must push back against the normalization of K-9 violence. The use of police dogs is not necessary and does more harm than good.
Lawmakers must stop bending to police unions. These carve-outs exist solely due to police lobbying, not because they serve a legitimate purpose, but to preserve policing tactics rooted in slavery-era patrols and Jim Crow enforcement.
Funding should be redirected toward nonviolent, community-based alternatives to policing that don’t rely on attack-trained animals.
This is not a radical position, it is an alignment with global precedent. We cannot claim to be moving forward in dog welfare while simultaneously making exceptions for the worst abuses.
Spread awareness about this. Share this with your networks and call out lawmakers who support these exemptions.
Demand full accountability. Contact your representatives and tell them you oppose any bill that exempts police K-9 trainers or includes exceptions for aversive methods.
Push for abolition. We must move beyond reforming how police dogs are trained to questioning why we use them at all.
The fight for ethical training doesn’t stop with pet dogs, it must apply across the board. No exemptions. No excuses.
Learn more about the issues with the reality of Police K9s: https://youtu.be/SiajRDjHsGI
Sources:
• New Jersey A1212/S3814 – Dog Trainer Licensing Bill (2024) https://legiscan.com/NJ/text/A1212/id/2888316
• UK Shock Collar Ban (2024) https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/about-us/campaigns/electric-shock-collars/
• Germany Animal Welfare Act §11 (2014) – Dog Trainer Licensing & Shock Collar Ban https://www.animallaw.info/statute/germany-cruelty-german-animal-welfare-act
• ACLU Report on Police K-9 Use & Racial Bias https://www.aclusocal.org/en/press-releases/aclu-report-finds-police-attack-dogs-have-severely-and-permanently-injured-hundreds
• Montreal Shock Collar Ban (2020) https://www.spca.com/en/reward-dont-punish-when-out-dog-walking/
• The K-9 Corps: The Use of Dogs in Police Work (1961) https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol52/iss3/10/
• History of the USPCA (United States Police Canine Association) https://www.uspcak9.com/history-of-the-uspca
What the law says now
When I checked the current sources on September 5, 2026, I found that these laws do not all work the same way: Denmark and Austria have specific security- or service-dog exceptions, Norway has a limited aversion-training exception, France has a separate legal framework for authorized bite-work, and final EU Regulation 2026/1818 allows Member States to exempt military, police, or customs dogs from Article 18’s handling rules. None of that changes my position: these carve-outs are political, unacceptable, and should be removed.
The official archives show that A1212 and S3814 were separate prior-session proposals with different standards. Both excluded police-related dog training. A1212 used an NCCA/credentialing structure tied to 2019 APDT/CCPDT/IAABC standards; S3814 instructed the proposed board to adopt a code precluding aversive methods.
WHY LICENSING CAN INSTITUTIONALIZE HARM
Before it becomes official
Here is the heart of the argument:
Because regulation can do two very different things.
It can raise the welfare floor.
Or it can freeze the compromise.
Raising the welfare floor means the law says: below this line, no. You cannot use pain as a teaching tool. You cannot use fear as a shortcut. You cannot use intimidation and call it communication. You cannot shock, choke, pinch, flood, or frighten a dog into compliance and call that professional training.
Freezing the compromise means the law takes the industry’s current unresolved middle ground — the polite, credentialed, aversive-tolerant middle — and makes it official.
And if the compromise becomes law, then the more humane position can start to look extreme.
That is what people need to understand.
The question is not: should dog trainers be regulated?
The question is: will regulation remove coercion from the profession, or will it regulate coercion into legitimacy?
That is the whole episode.
Evidence, sources, professional guidance, and deeper history
For the science, primary sources, professional guidance, and deeper history behind this argument, start here:
What I am asking lawmakers and agencies to do
- Oppose A4206 in its current form. Do not let licensure turn CCPDT or any other aversive-tolerant credentialing body into state-recognized authority without an enforceable welfare floor.
- Oppose A4207 in its current form. Remove the police and military exclusions and replace vague or outdated aversive-tolerant standards with clear prohibitions.
- End police K-9 units. Move legitimate search-and-rescue capacity into civilian and volunteer structures and fund nonviolent, community-based alternatives.
- Demand disclosure. Lawmakers should identify who requested every exemption, publish supporting testimony and lobbying records, and explain why government trainers should receive a lower welfare standard.
- Make the issue visible. Share my analysis and the official bill records. Hold lawmakers publicly accountable for their answer.
No exemptions. No excuses.
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