How this study is held to account
A commercial business funding research into its own methods should expect to be doubted. So here is the whole arrangement — including the parts that are not finished yet.
The arrangement
Pre-registered before it enrols
Being put in placeThe design, the measures and the analysis plan are locked and registered before the first dog joins, so the questions cannot be quietly changed later to fit the answers.
Someone other than us holds it
Being put in placeAn independent steering body — not Buck’s — is designed to hold registration, custody of the data, and the decision over what gets published, and is committed to publishing whatever the study finds, flattering or not.
Independent assessment of every dog
In placeNo dog is enrolled without an independent veterinary assessment and the owner’s informed consent.
Independent rating and analysis
Being put in placeAn independent outcome rater, statistician and ethics oversight are in place before the study opens.
Buck’s is one site, not the study
Being put in placeThe study is designed to run across several enrolling sites, with Buck’s held to the same standard as everyone else’s work.
The items marked being put in place are designed and described but not yet contracted. We would rather show you that than let a page imply the study is more supervised today than it actually is. None of them are optional: the study does not open until they are done.
Consent
No dog is enrolled without an independent veterinary assessment and the owner’s informed consent, in writing, after being shown what is measured and for how long.
Participation is voluntary throughout. You may withdraw at any point, and withdrawing has no effect on the training you receive from us.
Your data
Custody of the study data is designed to sit with the independent steering body rather than with us, along with the decision over what gets published.
The specific handling, retention and withdrawal terms are set out in the consent documents you read before agreeing to anything — not summarised on a marketing page, where they would inevitably drift out of date.
What this study cannot tell you
- Owners choose their own group, so any difference between groups is reported only as an association — never as evidence that one approach beats another.
- A study that could settle which approach is better would have to randomise who gets what. This one does not, and is not it.
- It makes no case for restricting these tools, and no case for permitting them.
Anyone who tells you a single observational study settled this argument — in either direction — is overselling it. That includes us.
Our conflict of interest
Buck’s Dog Training is a commercial dog-training business and it is funding this work. That is a real conflict of interest. It is exactly why the study is designed to be sponsored of record by an independent body, with Buck’s as one enrolling site among several.
Prospective Assessment of Training, Handling & Sustained outcomes is the study this arrangement exists to protect. See what taking part involves.