An open letter to the person fixated on my dog’s prong collar

You saw my dog wearing a prong collar. It made you uncomfortable. I can respect those emotions!

Now you’re having a hard time letting our training differences go. Instead of remembering all the things we do align on as dog owners, you can’t get the image of our scary-looking metal device out of your head. You might have even thought to yourself (or gone so far as to tell me directly) that I must be abusing my dog. That I don’t deserve to have her. That she’s miserable.

I know you mean well. It’s obvious you love dogs. (Me, too.) And I love that you care.

But I’m sad to see you spending your resources sending unkind messages to a stranger on the internet instead of channeling them into other avenues of animal welfare.

Do you really believe everyone who uses a prong (or an ecollar or whatever other training tool) with their dog is a horrible person? Do you truly think every pet wearing these items is in an awful state of mind? Are you genuinely convinced that I would wake up in the morning …