I was lucky that one of my cats was born into foster care. The other was picked up from the street by the shelter. The street kitty is the more loving one xD

Both of them fear the water bottle. Usually they'll jump off the kitchen counters if they hear me get up at all (they're loud about jumping up onto them).

I really want to get a blender defender. I can't arm the kitchen with a water bottle while I'm sleeping :/

Blender Defender

That blender defender looks AWESOME. HAHAHA I want one too. It'd keep Princess off the counter, that's for sure.. I can't exactly teleport home every time a cat gets on the counter and turn on the blender. x_x

I like that thing because it does the same thing that I'm normally doing by jumping on the floor or tossing a small object near the cat. It's a shock, it scares them and gets them to back off. But there is no harm done :)

I think that a light swat or bump for an animal is okay. I sometimes bump my dog's butt when he's sniffing into something he shouldn't or wrestling with his "cousin dog" (my cousin's doggy ^^). I think a light thing like that is okay, but slapping or hitting an animal to an extent that it causes it to cry out or get hurt is never okay. I hate shock collars too by the way. :)

The same goes for kids. Sometimes they need a good swat (just ask my brother xD) to get them back on track. Nothing that would really hurt them though!

Hm. I think the correct force at the correct time is quite effective without being considered cruel. I have received a few spankings in my younger days, but I can honestly say that they were well deserved. I did not live in fear of my parents, and I don't to this day. I think it was the correct form of discipline at the time. In fact, I can think of many, many teenagers that it would have helped very much. I agree with a few of the previous posters, 'props' like sticks or belts or what have you should not be used. A singe 'thwack' works just fine. My parents are not sadistic people, I needed to learn a lesson. Putting me in my room for a while or taking away my toys would not have been anywhere NEAR as effective.

As for animals, they obviously aren't the same as children. Even though it might seem like it sometimes (A JOKE!). I don't think animals should be beaten. I don't think animals should ever be seriously injured as punishment.

I can't hit my cat when she's being a jerk (Even if I really want to at the time) because she's too fast and she's quite adept at catching my hands with her claws. A water bottle works fabulously, however. If I give her a little smack when she's doing something annoying (Like walking around in the blinds when I'm trying to sleep, she'll just get mad and hit me back, ambush me from around corners, things like this.

However, the people upstairs have two little Yorkie dogs who never shut up. When I go up to do laundry (They have the machines) the dogs yap their little heads off, run after me, and try to bite my ankles. They do this to EVERYONE except the owners, and natch, only when the owners are home. Needless to say, it's ridiculously annoying and they're dirty and I feel very much like kicking them. The owners have no concept of discipline, picking them up after screaming at them does nothing. That Ceasar Milano "Shhtch!" does nothing. A stern voice does nothing. Vocal threats do nothing. I am not sure if they've tried the water bottles, it may be a short term handling. However, I happen to know that I few well placed smacks would do the trick.
Animals do not have the same reasoning capacity as humans. Some dogs are very smart, but they aren't necessarily as sentient as we are. To tell the dogs "Oy, please stop. You achieve nothing by doing this, you embarrass the people you love and you are burning bridges. If you were well behaved, you could go outside. You love being outside! See, let's work something out." However, pain reaction is an instinct. Pain tells the body, "Stop! Stop whatever you're doing! Something isn't right here, stop immediately or you could be further injured or you could die." Pain is a warning against non-survival activity. Pissing off humans is a non-survival activity, especially when they are much bigger than you. Animals remember pain and they would think twice (not literally, of course) when they go to bark at a visitor.
I would not indulge in hitting these dogs as punishment, but rather, careful use as discipline. They're not young animals any more and were obviously raised terribly.

don't get me wrong, i use positive reinforcement and clicker training with my dog (she's training for competition) but i do swat her nose if she tries to get nippy with me. true you can train a dog without a shock collar (personally i don't use them) but for hunting purposes it is easier for training. that is all i'm saying.

again I don't condone animal abuse.

as for the child part of this debate, i got spankings as a child when i was naughty so i guess i really don't see a problem with that. but! if you're just a hitting a child for the sake of wanting to hit them or you're leaving lasting damage i do have a problem with that.

Heh, Yeah. Sarcasm doesn't carry very well because there is no tone of voice when it comes to reading :P
Maybe a (JUST KIDDING) or something along those lines to put after the sarcastic sentence. (:

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[/COLOR]LOL! xD It works and it's funny :P

I was literally, rolling on the floor laughing for 5 minuets after watching that video!

Has no one seen this article, or similar ones, circulating around the web recently?

Spanking Makes Children More Aggressive, Study Shows - ParentDish

Must read. Really.

Tapping or flicking your pet's nose is not abuse, but either way, it is still showing some sort of physical harm that is not positive. An animal doesnt need to be flicked or pinched to know what's right or wrong. I'm sure that with proper training, your cat will stop whatever it is you don't approve of with a stern "NO."

I dunno about "not remembering what they were hit for." Like I said before, I remember exactly what I was being smacked for the two times I ever was smacked. I was throwing tantrums. I needed those smacks on the rump to get it through my head that tantrums were wrong. It was absolutely not going to be explained to me logically and it was not going to be fixed by sending me to my room. That never did anything for me. (I want to reiterate [from a previous post] that I was a very well behaved child when I was young, I wasn't prone to doing bad things).

(Something I didn't state in my previous post that I would like to clarify) I think that smacking any child to the point that they actually feel lasting physical pain is wrong, the same with animals. Also, doing it repeatedly for no reason is wrong. I do believe, however, that tapping a pet on the head or butt (or smacking a kid on the rump) to get it to stop doing something (even flicking) is a perfectly okay way of dealing with continued misbehavior issues.

I see (: Again, I have nothing against you and how you raise your pet. Please don't think I am picking on you ^.^ Maybe instead of a tap on the nose, you can pick him up, put him down in a different spot, look him straight in the eye and say NO! Let me know if you have tried this before, or if you are going to try it (: I'm telling you from my own experience that I used to tap my guinea pig on the nose when she would bite my shirt. I then realized that when I tap her, it gets her angry and she just continues to bite. So what I do with her, is I take her off of my shoulder and hold her infront of my face. I sternly say "Shaggy, NO!". I then either return her to her previous spot and she stops her nibbling, or I place her on my stomach instead of on my shoulder. In a couple of days, I have trained her not to nibble. (Know that she would nibble because she was excited, not because she is a mean piggy.) I know that Guinea pigs are different then cats, but maybe my technique will work? ^.^

It really depends on the cat. I've lived with cats my whole life and none of the three that I have owned has been trained the same way. One cat stopped being naughty on her own, one never was, and one still is sometimes. The one that still does annoying, "bad," things has to be tapped or something of the like to get her to stop committing the offense or she goes right back to it.

It all depends on the animal. I've never hurt my cat, but the only thing she seems to listen to is a tap on the nose. Saying "No" doesn't work, and I personally view the water bottle as cruel. The thing cats hate most in the world (next to dogs) is water and my baby freaks out if water gets near her, so I couldn't do that if you paid me.

If I had an absolutely IMPOSSIBLE cat that no amount of training could make it obey, I would much rather use something that scares it then something that hurts it physically.

As far as I'm concerned the water hurts her more than a tap on the nose does. The tap causes her to blink and jump off of the table/stop misbehaving whilst the water makes her shriek, yowl, and run about for ten minutes shaking. It's her reaction that's important to me.

Like we both said, all animals are different. Yours my react to water by shrieking and running, but others may react to water by just blinking and scream when they are tapped.

Yes, that's all I'm trying to get through. :)

My Mom's a single parent and me and my little brother see my Dad every Sunday. When I was ickle, my Mom didn't really smack me because I would sit down with her and ask her why she thought what I was doing was wrong (( I never did anything that was obviously bad, like playing in the kitchen when she was cooking. )) and then we'd just talk about it.

My Dad, on the other hand, used to smack me a bit. It was when I knocked the plant pot over or something, and he only ever did it to me about three times before I learned not to do it any more. My little brother, on the other hand, is disabled and it takes a lot of stern talking and / or bribery to get him to stop doing something. Food usually works. >.<

In terms of animal cruelty, I've luckily heard of / been in that kinda situation. I completely disagree with ANY form of violence towards animals. The moment they understand English and can actually form an argument against someone telling then no, I'll have a bit more empathy with abusers. Until that day, it's unacceptable. (:

No. No no and no.

What?

Despite the fact I hate it, if you get mad enough at one point or another your pet well at least understand that it's not supposed to do that. Hitting isn't right for an animal, it makes them scared of you and alot of animals react violently through fear. Kids, to me, is a different story. I was smacked around when I was little because I was bad, I don't count it as abuse because it's how my family disciplined me. Kids to me, they just don't get it right away or they don't respect you, at least that's what I've seen. Alot of kids my age weren't smacked around and they don't have much respect for others. It makes me laugh to think that way but that's just what I've witnessed.

Nice thread necro, Sora XD

I am wondering how I didn't get around to posting in this, though. Hm. Well, anyway. I am completely against using violence as a form of discipline. For one thing, as I've said in a few other threads, I simply don't believe punishment of any sort works. It teaches the children or animals to avoid the punishment. They don't want to stop whatever they're doing, so the easiest way to do that is to simply figure out how to hide what they're doing from you. Now you have a misbehaving animal/child who is also dishonest and quite possibly hates and fears you. Positive reinforcement, on the other hand, directly connects doing something good to being rewarded. With animals, or with young humans, this is critical, as they do not yet understand the non-physical "rewards" for good behaviour, such as respect, friendship, appreciation, love, and so on. It is far harder to fake doing something good than it is to hide doing something bad. Besides, professional dog trainers, you know, the people who do this shit for a living, do not use violence and very few of them use punishment of any sort anymore. If they say punishment doesn't work and positive reinforcement does, then I'm willing to believe they know what they're talking about, at the very least with animals.

But I also think that violence is just unnecessary. You are an adult. Throwing a hissy fit and hitting someone is something you should have gotten over as a kid. If you cannot alter people's behaviour without hitting them, what will you do when confronted with those whom the law hasn't said it's okay to abuse? Coworkers, friends, parents, employees, and so on? You'll be completely unprepared. And what's worse, in the case of children, you're setting them up for the same pattern -- if they have children, they won't know how to handle problems other than through violence. Even if they don't, they may still be abusive to those around them. And all this, because parents are too damned lazy to try actual parenting.

I've got to say, I love the rationalizing that goes on when separating "good" violence from "bad" violence. "Oh, I'm just spanking her, it's not like I'm slapping her!", or "I'm just slapping her, it's not like I'm beating her!". It's all pain, and if you don't ever take it any farther, how far you did take it does not matter. That is the extent of punishment the child or animal knows. It doesn't matter to her that some parents punch their children or beat them with rods, or that some owners kick their animals so hard they break bones. All that matters is that you're doing something to her, and it hurts. And for those of you saying that it doesn't really hurt, you have to know that's not true. As far as physical punishment goes, either it hurts or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, she has absolutely no reason to stop what she's doing. I hope parents and owners who lay their hands on their charges have simply shut their brains down, and aren't thinking about all this. It would really worry me if they did think about what they were doing, really thought about it, and still did it.

I don't think I'd say hitting your dog or child lightly is wrong, but I'd never do it myself. I would never hit an animal or a child, but then I think it's possible there are situations when it is needed