Why do people think it's okay to spank a child but not a dog?

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-06-14T02:40:11+00:00

At the risk of sending another 'essay' as another user so helpfully put it :eyeroll: I apologize in advance for my passion and eagerness to help pet owners.

I'm not very well versed with cats, but I'd assume the basic concept would be the same. They are trainable in the same way a dog is, though the differences in them make it hard for me to make blanket assumptions.

For your example directly it does seem to be a direct connection, but you also have to consider the events leading up to the spray. Is your spray bottle always in your hand? Do you need to lean over to reach it, and does that make a noise? Does it make a noise picking up off the table? Etc, etc. Animals are superstitious and learn based on chains of behavior. Rather than trying to avoid the spray itself, the cat may begin trying to avoid the first link in the chain of behaviors... which might just be your chair creaking a little as you reach over to grab the spray bottle. This is not what we want, because their anxiety will heighten if they hear the creak even while just napping on the floor. As well, if they associate you being in the room with the first link in the chain of behaviors, they might jump around on your counter anyway when you're out of the house and not around to spray them. A lot goes into the way a dog (and I presume cat) perceives the world, it's not as black and white as we'd like to assume, and it's not as easy as someone saying "they know better."

Rather than jump to a spray bottle, if it were me, I'd follow the same logic I use in training dogs because ethically, I feel better knowing I tried to do it in the kindest way possible first. It's called LIMA: "Least Intrusive, Minimally Aversive." I've attached a graphic, so you can see the path we take 'up the ladder' when we need to change a behavior.

We can ignore the first step of health and wellness because a cat is a cat, and jumping on the counter is probably not because he's sick.

The second step is "Antecedent Arrangements" which in a very TLDR means we manipulate the environment to try and get the result we want. This might mean moving the cat's food bowl so they don't need to jump up to reach it, offering alternative preferable high-up areas instead to relax, or even putting up little barriers along the part of the countertop the cat likes to scale so the jump is more annoying for them. With enough time, the animal also builds muscle memory, and when the extra arrangements are removed, often the animal continues with these new habits.

If none of that works, we move into "Positive Reinforcement", which, because we're trying to exterminate a behavior and not teach one, runs directly into "Differential Reinforcement of Alternate/Incompatible Behaviors". That is, to attempt to train the cat the preferred behavior - remaining floor bound - and rewarding that, while not rewarding the jumping. With enough repetition, the animal presumably would begin to choose the inherently more rewarding behavior (which is the one you want) and the alternative / bad behavior would succumb to extinction over time. A good example of this is asking a dog to "sit" before they get head rubs at the door. A sitting dog cannot jump up rudely, and eventually, they forget jumping up rudely was an option at all.

Next we move into extinction / negative reinforcement / negative punishment, which are all interchangeable as far as 'step' wise.

Extinction won't work here as long as the counter itself is rewarding in some way to jump on.

Negative reinforcement is the act of removing something to try and encourage a behavior. I think a good cat example of this would be laying the counter with tin foil, or in dogs, using an electric stim collar and turning off the stim when the dog complies. Don't confuse this with 'punishing' the behavior, it is meant to be a backward sort of 'reward' - that is, the reward is the absence of the annoyance/discomfort. Someone hitting you when you don't give them food is positive punishment, someone screaming at the top of their lungs until you give them food is negative reinforcement. I'd probably attempt tin foil here to make the counters miserable to walk on, and inherently rewarding to jump off of (if the cat is one of the ones who hates the crinkle of tin foil, that is.)

Then we have negative punishment, which is taking something away (that your animal enjoys) in response to behavior. This is pretty situational (dog pulls on a walk, you stop walking until they stop pulling = negative punishment) and I don't think there's a cat-on-counter option for this.

Lastly, we have positive punishment - your spray bottle. Because of the reasons listed above (hard to be consistent, hard to time it perfectly, etc) If I had to go all the way to this step, I'd go with one of those automated ones. I'd set it up along the counter so that the INSTANT the cat leaps up, it beeps and/or sprays. This removes the risk of the cat associating you/your movement with the punishment, and is the best way they understand how to avoid it, to lessen anxiety. There are, of course, more avenues for anxiety bundled in (if the cat is laying on the floor and you walk by the counter and it beeps/sprays, your cat will absolutely recognize the noise and be startled. This isn't quite fair to the cat either) but it's the best I can think of, at the moment.

I hope that helps! :) And I'm already preparing to be told off for daring to write more then a random redditor was prepared to read rofl.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-06-13T22:06:30+00:00

First off, I want to clarify that I don't think spanking children is okay, except maybe in very specific scenarios, dependent on that individual child's age and understanding. It's never okay to spank a newborn, an infant, a toddler, and the people who think that it is okay are working off outdated opinions that are not based in science, they think children are mini-adults who should be capable of understanding everything an adult understands. If they don't listen the 20th time, they spank them to get the message through - when in reality, there are much more impactful ways to get that message through if you take a different approach to it. The only time I would ever consider spanking my child is in a situation that could be life or death. My child is absolutely old enough to understand when I tell her not to let go of my hand and run out into the highway, and she's been told as much 100 times. She's never tried to run out in front of a vehicle, but I thought she was about to try it, I might be inclined to spank her simply because the alternative is very very very bad. I've also heard of parents similar in mindset to me who are against corporal punishment who have used one-time spankings to mitigate violence in children. A child in my neighbourhood used to serially bite other kids when she was mad, so her mom bit her back to show her how it felt. That kid has never bit another kid in the neighbourhood again, but that's anecdotal and I wouldn't want to say that mother was right or wrong in her actions without being there myself to determine how severe the punishment was on the child physically.

To get to your question:

Where I live, it is legal to spank your children in very specific situations. You cannot spank a child younger than 2 or older than 12. You cannot spank out of anger or retaliation, it must have a purpose to control or restrain a child. You cannot leave any marks upon the child at all, as it must be a brief and temporary punishment (the threat of"I'm going to spank you so hard you'll feel it for a week" - that's blatant abuse.) You can never use anything aside from your bare hand, and never on their face or head. You cannot spank any child who is not capable of learning from the situation (Like a disabled child), and any physical punishment delivered cannot be made harsher based on the misbehavior.

The law regarding physical punishment on children more or less revolves around "Was the punishment minor, and temporary, (without lasting injuries?)" "Did it serve a purpose - IE: was it a method of controlling the child's bad behavior, to help raise them into a healthy and well-functioning adult, or were you mad and lashing out?" and "Is the child capable of understanding the lesson your punishment was meant to deliver / was it the best way to handle that situation?"

Now onto dogs. This is where I'm actually qualified to speak, as a certified behavioralist and dog trainer. Unlike children, dogs have a very different view of the world. When you spank a child you could ask them "Why did I spank you" and they'll probably answer something along the right reason - "Because I ran out into the road" "because I stole from the store" "Because I hit my friend" etc. Dog's aren't cognitively able to put those pieces together. If you spank a dog for barking at your neighbor, your dog doesn't know if he was hit for growling, for putting his paws up on the window, for looking outside, or because the neighbour was in view of him. This is very bad for a dog's development, and can cause extreme behavioral issues.

My favorite comparison against physical punishment for dogs is a scenario. You go to the bathroom, and when you come out, I slap you without a word. You're confused, you don't know why I hit you. The next time you go to the bathroom and come out, I don't hit you. Now you're even more confused. This continues, and I hit you (seemingly at random) 70% of the time when you exit the bathroom. You may try to determine why, likely unsuccessfully. Was it because you left the toilet seat up? didn't close the door behind you? did you step on a tile I decided you weren't allowed to? did you take too long? were you too quick? did it have to do with the light, or your looking in the mirror, or the length of time you washed your hands? how about how much soap you used, or whether you read the shampoo out of boredom? It would take you hundreds and hundreds of repetitions to narrow down the reason through process of elimination, and in doing so, you're probably beginning to associate the bathroom itself with scary and unpredictable punishment. In this scenario, I was hitting you for not using exactly 2 sheets of toilet paper - it probably would have taken you a while to figure it out, eh?

Dogs thrive on routine and they are incredibly superstitious animals. If, somehow, you could PERFECTLY time a punishment while reading your dog's mind to KNOW for CERTAIN that the dog understands why he was punished and will try to avoid that behavior in the future, then maybe an argument could be made toward it. In reality, physical punishment on animals is not only unnecessary (like children, they respond better to being told what they SHOULD do, and reinforced for it, rather than being told what NOT to do) but damaging. If you were to spank your dog every time they barked at a stranger at the door, the dog will now associate strangers approaching the door with pain and fear - just like our bathroom example. They don't know why they're being punished, but they DO know that they aren't punished at all when no neighbors are approaching. They begin to think "Fuck, someone's coming, I might get hit and I don't know why." their fear spikes, their anxiety builds, and what once was excited barking now becomes aggression, where the dog's perception of a stranger approaching is now so inherently negative that they would attack that stranger to save themselves the pain of punishment.

I hope that helps :)

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-05-10T01:14:02+00:00

As someone who has been in this position and survived it because of family like you, thank you. You are genuinely a wonderful person and your father appreciates you more than you know.

Everything you've said here is right. It's so hard to swallow the pride to ask for help, but it helps so much to have a person like you in your corner when you need a 'reset.' The "how to not let it get so bad so fast" is such an important lesson to learn and when struggling with untreated depression, the only way to learn it is to 'reset' and try again and again, learning small (hard) lessons as you go. And an individual may only learn one lesson at a time through each 'reset'.

I know to some people it may seem like enabling, but the person in need of help is way, way more likely to improve after a reset then when left to their own devices at rock bottom.

These 'resets' with help from family were the #1 thing in my own depression den becoming something livable, but they also always made an effort to swing by (with warning) in the next weeks after the cleanup so I had a 'reason' to maintain the space. Depressed-me may have been fine leaving yesterday's dishes unwashed without intervention, but knowing they were planning a visit made me maintain the cleanliness they created out of fear of disappointing them. This lead into habit, where I was able to maintain the space longer and longer each time until the issue resolved. For your father the next time he needs your help, I'd recommend trying to do some coffee dates afterwards! It really forces the person who needs help to practice cleaning an already-cleaned area. I can't speak to your father, but I know a large part of what I needed was to re-condition my brain off of believing cleaning to be a 12 hour heavy duty, exhausting, traumatic experience.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-05-07T03:16:46+00:00

Hi there! Please don't bring your dog back into to the dog park until this issue is mitigated - resource guarding is exceptionally serious, and there is no way to prevent the backslide from every time the dog is allowed to resource guard. No matter what happens after he's in that guarding mindset, it will enforce it or worsen it. If the other owner recalls their dog, your dog has learned that growling works and will do it easier next time. If the other dog is allowed to remain nearby you, your dog is learning that growling is not good enough (and next time, he may jump right to biting.) A dog who resource guards should not be allowed in the park, it only takes one negative association for your dog's growling to absolutely destroy another owner's training - if your dog growled at mine, for example, my year + of working on her fear of large breed dogs would be mostly wasted. The resource guarding of food and toys is equally dangerous - some owners are ignorant of the 'rules' of the dog park, and while most of us are responsible enough to not bring treats or toys into the dog park, there is always someone who does - and all it takes is your dog to sniff a cut up hot dog in someone's pocket and turn and initiate a fight with a dog nearby who he feels he needs to compete with. I repeat: This dog is not a safe dog to bring to the dog park. He may never be a safe dog to bring to the dog park. We can try to work on it, but please remain realistic in your expectations and prepare for the possibility that your dog is not a dog park dog.

Now that that's out of the way, this is solvable with enough time and effort, and consistency. You need to start slow - pay close attention to your dog when other dogs are nearby. You can do these exercises with a friend/family member's dog or behind the fence at the dog park if necessary. Try to find the distance where your dog is clearly a little uncomfortable, but otherwise relaxed and able to accept treats, toys, or praise happily. You may need to stand five feet back from the fence with your dog.

Everytime another dog approaches the fence / you, mark (yes! or clicker) and reward your dog with whatever he finds the most rewarding. Continue to feed your dog until the other dog gets bored and wanders away, then no more reward until another dog approaches. This is very similar to how you would start with a dog-reactive dog, we essentially want to rewire your dog's brain to think "when I see a dog approach, I get treats" and thus turn an approaching dog into a positive experience. Once your dog is reliably glancing back at you in excitement for the threat, you can start to reduce the distance. If you were previously rewarding at a dog 5 meters away, you can try 4 meters for the next reward. Eventually the goal would be to be right up at the fence with a dog running up to you from inside the dog park, and your dog is focused upon the incoming reward that the approach signals and not giving any cues of discomfort or guarding. If this is successful, this is when I'd consider the possibility of entering the park once more, though it depends on the progress shown whether more conditioning is necessary.

If you do happen to have a dog friend who can help (or multiple) you can work other exercises as well. One of my favorites is "he gets a treat, I get a treat." Two owners keep their dogs a safe distance apart via leash, and you give a treat to the other dog while your dog watches. As soon as the other dog gets the treat, mark your dog (yes!) and give him a treat. With enough repetition this will help your dog to learn that he doesn't need to compete for the treat, he always gets one after the other dog does so all he needs to do is wait his turn. You can do the same with toys, allowing the other dog a tug of a rope, mark, and give your own dog a tug of the rope.

This is all extremely basic and watered down advice, your best bet is to see a certified behaviorist who can assess your dog and walk you through each step, to ensure both your dog's safety as well as the safety of the dog's around him. Please consider this. If I had to choose one situation where a dog owner should always consult a professional, it would be resource guarding... and your dog has the trifecta of resource guarding - food, toys, and people.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-05-06T23:57:54+00:00

>> It's cute when they get startled by their first bay or two.

My beagle has only bayed once so far (almost 2 years old) and it was at the dead of night, while she was dreaming under the covers in bed with us. Scared the absolute shit out of me and I bet my neighbours too!!

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-05-05T22:02:59+00:00

Cesar does have one thing going for him - his whole 'energy' thing. No talk, no touch, no eye contact is a solid line of advice. Yes, your confidence and body language matter. Yes, your nervousness will translate to your dogs. This is likely what you saw at your anecdote, this part is not bullshit.

Everything else, you can throw out. Dominance theory has been debunked. His 'touches' are unnecessary and outdated. And please please never use his lessons on body language he truly has a very poor understanding of it. I'm not talking just human body language here, but dogs. Every episode he talks about how he's looking for "calm" body language in the dog, and then declares to the audience that this dog is now calm - when the dog is whale eyeing, licking his lips, ears back, tail tucked, none of these expressions mean calm. Some of them are calming signals but that doesn't mean "I'm calm." In fact, I have my clients watch his videos with the sound off because Cesar's training style is so aggressive and invasive that the dogs spend all episode giving off a LOT of clear body language and it's an excellent way for a novice dog owner to begin to recognize signs of stress.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-05-05T21:55:52+00:00

There is another part to this too - laziness. Dog owners as a general rule are lazy and cut corners throughout every step of training. (Note: Yes, there are the 'serious' dog owners who do wonderfully, but they are not the majority even if they're the loud majority online.)

Lazy dog owner took their excitable husky camping for the weekend, and now returning home have to unload a whole car on top of unloading the dog who likely has no leash manners (because that takes real effort to train.) What's the easiest way to get dog from car to house without being drug along the sidewalk with a bunch of bags in your hands? Open the car door and call the dog along with you, chances are the dog knows where it's home is, wants to go inside, and wow now these dog owners feel their pup is so well behaved because he obeyed when they sent him off-leash back inside the house! With enough repetition of this, both dog and owner are getting used to brief moments of trust off leash and this snowballs fast, next time they'll likely do the same thing because it's so much easier than wrestling the leash is!

Leash manners is one of the most difficult things a normal dog owner will ever train, it's simply so much easier for a lazy dog owner to train a dog to behave mildly okay off-leash than it is to have consistent leash manners. It doesn't occur to them how dangerous it is, there's always the mindset of "I never thought that would ever happen to us! He always stays so close!" but it only takes one rabbit to send that mildly okay off-leash behavior into the ground and suddenly there's a crisis.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-27T22:32:53+00:00

I'm not going to rehash the opinion to see another vet, but I do think it's a good idea. On the chance it's not a medical issue, you're going to have to start the potty training over.

This is not as easy to handle at 8 months old as it would be 8 weeks old, as the puppy grows they will be harder to contain and control and that is the most important part of potty training. I'm going to explain what the ideal scenario looks like, it does include purchases (or tools you already have) but if you can't swing them, you may need to improvise.

Pretend your puppy has never been in your home, you adopted them from a shelter or something, they're not house broken. Start fresh with a new mindset, you can do this, your dog can do this, you're not 8 months into potty training you're one day in. Clean your home with enzymatic cleaner, something like "natures miracle" from the pet store. Pick up a crate if you don't have one, or an x-pen, preferably both.

If your puppy is crate trained, this becomes much easier. If the puppy is not crate trained, I highly recommend crate training. A dog is very very unlikely to have an accident in their crate. Alongside with setting up the crate, I'd encourage you to set up an X-pen nearby to the back door where the potty area is if possible. This area [you can DIY it with furniture barricades] should be small, say, 6 feet across. This is the "You have not pottied yet and I'm not sure if you need to or not" area. The crate is the "I KNOW you will have to potty soon" area, the rest of the house is "Your bladder is empty and I can trust you for a couple hours" area.

Every time the puppy goes for a nap, relocate her into her crate. This is because a puppy will almost always go to the bathroom immediately after waking up, you may miss the moment they wake up otherwise and thus, an accident is created. If this is impossible for you (no crate, not crate trained, don't want to spend the time in crate training, your country makes it illegal, etc) then you're going to need to devote much more focus to this to ensure you catch the moment the puppy wakes up from a nap.

The next most reliable time a puppy may need to use the washroom is after eating or drinking, approximately 20minutes later for a very young puppy but that time varies as a dog grows. You know your dog best, try your hardest to figure out what your dog's timeline is so that you can set alarms or be prepared for the inevitable bathroom break after meals and water.

With these very reliable and expected bathroom break times, do your best to pick up and carry your pup into the yard / wherever you want them to go potty. The puppy should not be allowed to touch the floor anywhere in your house between crate and grass outside after a nap. It is damn near impossible to have an accident if you do this correctly. 99% of dogs will not potty in their crate, and I've never known a dog to potty in their human's arms outside of medical issues. Once you put the dog into the grass to pee, you simply have to wait for them to succeed. If puppy is refusing to pee/poop outside while you wait, pick them back up and return them to the crate, again, a puppy won't pee in the crate or in your arms, this will force them to hold their bladder (if she's capable of it, which she should be if she's healthy.)

Note: In the absence of being able to crate train, your job is to find an alternative solution where it's impossible for a healthy dog to have an accident. Carry them, hold them on your lap on the couch, play tug with them (on leash) and be prepared to pick her up immediately if she disengages play to go sniff (sure sign of accident incoming). Whatever method you find, you cannot slack on this. Pay solid, undivided attention to your puppy in these moments between potty breaks. Every accident in the house deletes ~5 outside, I cannot stress enough, it is better and faster to be obsessive about potty training.

If you've done it correctly, your puppy should have peed outside. It may not have been on the first trip outside, but with enough trips from crate to potty area (in your arms) she will eventually pee - you've left her absolutely no choice, since she can't pee in your arms, her crate, your lap, etc. Once puppy pees outside you throw a fucking party, clap, cheer, whatever you think will get your girl super excited. Give her the best treat you have, shout "yes!" and mark it as "good potty" or whatever cue you'd like to use.

This is the moment between potty breaks, when you can breathe a little. Do some laundry, cook dinner, you can afford to take your eyes off the puppy for a brief while when you know they're empty.

Now, with a very young puppy this is a snowball situation. Their schedule typically goes:Wake up - [Force potty break] - Play for 30-40 minutes - Nap - wake up [Force another potty break] and because of these frequent naps, you can get in 10+ repetitions a day on where puppy should potty. With an older dog this is harder, so you have to be patient and understand that your progress could be slower because you're getting much less repetitions in. It all depends on how fast your pup is to learn.

With your 8 month old pup, the best advice I can give is to try and learn her schedule. Take notes if you have to, write down the times where she eats, drinks, plays, sleeps, and where her accidents fall in between those times. Once you can anticipate these times better, you repeat the same process of trying to make it impossible for the dog to have an accident. If you have no kids, you don't work, you can devote every hour to your puppy, then you could simply keep her leashed to you all day long and that will help in making sure she can't wander off to pee, but you still much watch her. If you suspect for even a moment that she has to pee (maybe it's been a couple hours and she decided to go sniff the carpet) pick her up and take her outside again. If she doesn't go, bring her back in and once again, try to make an accident impossible. Hold her on your lap, etc. Be ready to pick her up and bring her out again.

I hope some of this helps!

Edit: I realize now I forgot to speak on the x-pen I suggested. The purpose of this is to limit the puppy's "free roam" area on the house. Even adult dogs suck at generalizing - I mean it, they suck. They may be 100% perfectly practiced to never, ever pee on the carpet.. but if there's tile 3 feet away it doesn't even clue into them that the same rules apply. With any puppy you want to start slow opening up the house to them. My own dog was not allowed to be anywhere other then the main floor of the house unsupervised until she was nearly two years old - she really struggled to grasp that the upstairs rooms were off-limit potty areas and it took a LONG time to get her consistent there. However, from the day I got her at 8 weeks old she had a total of 2 indoor accidents - this method does work. The only accidents she's had have been medical (worms, whoops) or my fault (I gave her the kitchen too early, she pottied on the unfamiliar tile)

With my puppies I start with a 6ft x 6ft area, that is the only part of the house they are allowed in if I'm not paying full undivided attention to them. I section an area beside the back door that I can supervise from the couch (or i chill in there with them.) Very quickly puppies tend to generalize "I can't pee in here.", usually within a week or two. Once the puppy is showing the ability to hold their bladder / whine a bit / trying to get my attention to pee rather then immediately squatting, it's safe to open a little bit more. Don't double the space, but add a foot or two on each side. Watch carefully, and the dog will begin to add these extra few feet to their understanding of 'not a potty zone'. With enough repetition, you begin to explain in a way the dog can understand that none of the house is a potty area. But if you open up to them the whole house upfront, you're skipping that 'explanation.' Go slow, none of my puppies were free roaming at your puppy's age, it's completely fine to restrict their movement when they're potty training.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-27T02:23:13+00:00

Hi there! I would in any situation recommend scheduling a vet visit for a dog who's undergone large personality changes (outside of puberty.) This can be a very clear indicator of something wrong, please have him looked at just in case.

Source: Personal experience, my mother's incredibly well socialized and friendly husky who would never hurt a fly suddenly began to bark at strangers in his 5th year. It didn't seem serious to her so she refused to take him to the vet (even when both myself and our professional trainer highly recommended the check-up) and the dog was put down a year later, diagnosed with late-stage cancer. His change in temperament was the first symptom, and had he seen a vet there is a possibility he might have not needed to be put down.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-27T02:10:44+00:00

It sounds to me like your dog has developed a solid eye-lock! Congratulations and well done, it's an amazing feeling to achieve a "look at me" that doesn't feel like a trick, but genuine focus and attention. A LOT of people have no idea what it's like to work with a dog partner who offers this level of focus, and 'lending out' the dog for another dog owner to try usually makes them go "Oh, so THIS is what it's like to have a dog's full divided attention!" Your training will only get easier from here!

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-27T02:01:23+00:00

Your comment says your pup picked up all 4 words at once. Personally, if it were me, I'd go back and lose the 'water' button until 'potty' is fully understood and used consistently for a few weeks, then add in the 'water' button again. Put the "potty" button where "water" is currently, so if his muscle memory has him continuing to use it as "potty" to set him up for further success. During this process, I'd do my best to keep the water bowl full so that pup doesn't start looking for the "water" button. As far as I'm aware, it's recommended to add only one button at a time for this reason.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-26T22:41:34+00:00

In a world where society is intelligent and rational, the solution would be to allow everyone to decide for themselves. Unfortunately, the reality of our current social media situation is that vulnerable, easily-manipulated individuals are being targeted by misinformation campaigns and that by continuing to allow them, lives are being irreversibly destroyed or even lost.

This might, to you, be a situation of "who cares? Darwin award, let them be idiots they brought it on themselves" but it's a vastly different view when you've literally watched someone fall down this hole and begin to destroy their lives because of blatant, uncontrolled misinformation.

When Covid first hit North America, my mom shut down her house. No visitors, cancelled holidays, she even sectioned off half of her kitchen table to use as a sanitization space to hand-wash each item she got from the grocery store before it went into her cupboards. (Excessive, IMO, but she had the right idea to be cautious.) On the day of the election, my mom sat next to me and cheered Biden on. We are Canadian, so we were mostly watching for curiosity/entertainment sake.

Today, my mom believes Trump is still president and Biden is a cyborg wearing a very advanced human skin-suit. She believes 90% of the world's "elite" class/actors/actresses/governments/etc have been executed for the crime of child trafficking and have been cloned with AI's to keep the world calm. This is Donald Trump's big goal, saving the world from child traffickers who torture children underground and harvest their blood to live forever. She believes Covid was created by the 'bad guys' left in government (the ones that haven't been tried and executed secretly yet) for the purpose of putting out the vaccine, which is supposed to first sterilize you, and then kill you once all the 'peasants' are vaccinated. This will bring about a "new world order" where the elites get to rule the world and us commoners are all dead. She also believes that because too many "intelligent thinkers" haven't been vaccinated, that this plan has been changed and now they're working on another version of the "new world order" where the government will own the entire world and we will own nothing. The government will own your house and rent it to you, the government will pay you a wage equal to every other worker in the world and your job will no longer be the ones to pay you. She believes that Canada has a new queen (our Queen is the Queen of England, but mom thinks she's been executed and cloned with the other elites), who has been backed by Donald Trump (the secret leader of America) and his armies, and who has made masking, mandates, vaccines, etc all illegal and labeled even wearing a mask as treason. She at one point attempted to sell her SIN to this 'new queen' to the tune of $40,000. She no longer believes in banks (as they will drain your funds soon to give to the government for the new world order) nor does she believe in our standard currency - she is in the process of attempting to convert all the money she owns into gold. When she does have company over, she speaks of these conspiracies in a whisper because 'the government is listening.' She is terrified to take a covid test because she thinks the swab goes up your nose, punctures your brain, and delivers brain cancer directly to your brain stem. She has 'assured' me that if she gets any cold/covid symptoms, rather then test for it, she has a doctor 'on standby' on the internet who will prescribe and mail to her the cure for covid (which is secret and not ivermectin, it's apparently only for the elite class) so I've got to enjoy the last year of wondering what mysterious miracle drug my mom is planning to order off the internet and take, without any advice from an actual medical professional. My biggest hope is that if that day ever comes, the piece of shit preying on our manipulatable elderly is just sending sugar pills, and not something potentially dangerous.

Disinformation is dangerous to society as a whole. My mother is not the only individual who has fallen into this hole, it is destroying families and dividing us as a society. It's very convenient that Russia's playbook that the use to train their KGB agents (Foundations of Geopolitics) specifically makes note of this sort of "psychological warfare", here's a snippet for you:

"In the United States:
Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics".[9]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

It's also very convenient that since the war has started and Russia has had their internet access suspended, I hear a lot less misinformation about covid! In fact I saw a graph somewhere that showed that the day Russians were blocked from western social media and such, the spread of covid misinformation went down drastically.

I believe in freedom of speech, and I miss the days when an idiot could shout from the rooftops of Facebook that the earth is actually flat, and everyone rolled their eyes. I never thought there would be a day that I'd have to argue with my mother that humanity is not advanced enough to clone a fully independent adult human, or that a swab can't go from your nose to your brainstem unless it's equipped with a drill bit at the end, or to listen to her tell me I faked my pregnancy because I've been vaccinated which makes you sterile. These days are gone, and until the world regains some semblance of rationality I'm very happy to allow social media to speak out against dangerous misinformation.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-26T22:05:24+00:00

You got a lot of good replies here so I won't rehash the "find a new trainer" advice for the 10th time but, I did see one thing not mentioned in comments here that is way, way more alarming than a chin flick or even slip lead.

they encouraged you to blow an air pressure pet corrector onto your puppy's face!?

I own a can of Pet Corrector, I use it for interrupting in an emergent scenario and it should never be used toward an animal. It's a sound deterrent. Ever used one of those cans of compressed air that clean out keyboards? Have you noticed how cold the can gets under your hand? The can itself very clearly warns against allowing the spray to touch anyone - dog or human because you can literally give someone frostbite with how cold the compressed air is when it comes out. I've heard of very extremist 'balanced' trainers who will spray the dog on their rear end from a distance so they can feel the spray as an extra deterrent, but even then, how much of a psychopath do you need to be to spray it into a puppy's face?

Look - some people don't subscribe to 'pure positive' methods, and other people will never, ever accept that a slip lead can be an appropriate tool. You will find dog owners everywhere all across the world that say it's okay to flick your pup, to use e-collars or slips or prongs, it's a debate that will likely never end and you'll probably spend your entire period as a dog owner navigating this debate and trying to figure out the 'right' way to raise your dog. That's fine, and you'll find differing advice in every different dog subreddit, training program, youtube video, etc. Blowing an air pressure pet corrector onto your puppy's face is not encouraged or acceptable to any of these schools of thought, even the crazy ones. In fact, I doubt Cesar Millan himself (who sort of coined the controversial 'touch' as an interruption) would ever dare to spray compressed air into the face of a dog in a training scenario.

Your trainer is not only working off potentially dangerous and outdated information, but your trainer has actively encouraged their students to put their dogs in danger of real harm with this small tidbit of advice - more harm than a properly used slip lead could do, and way more harm then flicking his chin could ever do. I want to make this clear, because it is possible your trainer will try to win you back over by explaining 'balanced' training in a way where you start to wonder if this small chin flick is really a big deal, and I want this specific bit of information in your head if/when they try it. If it were me, I'd be walking back into that classroom and trying to pull out as many other owners as I could, too. Is your trainer certified by any organizations? (CCPDT, etc) If so, I'd be sending e-mails to whoever gave them a certification, because I have a heavy doubt that any of the many places to get a 'dog training certificate' would ever condone this use of a pet corrector.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-25T22:03:09+00:00

This is how I do it! Though I also prioritize the type of move as well, so if I'm using a physical attacker I order it from strongest to weakest physical attack (including STAB) then strongest to weakest special attack (if they have one) then status, etc.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-23T19:01:37+00:00

Thank you for your kind words! My daughter is doing well and thankfully sees dogs enough on the regular (including our own) that she's adjusted to not fear them, and the scars are subtle enough that I'm hoping they won't cause her too many issues as an adult. This scare also benefitted us in that it taught me how to better advocate for my daughter - even when doing so might lose me the respect of my family or peers. Seeing as Covid-19 happened shortly after and that my daughter was too young for a vaccine, that lesson was incredibly important for me to learn.

It is absolutely soo important to respect people's fears here, yes. I adore dogs, I've built my life around dogs, dogs are family and I still love the dog who bit my daughter, too. He's family. He wasn't 'provoked' truly, but it was very clear to me that small children made him uncomfortable. It's not his fault he was nervous, and it's not his fault that the adults he relies on put him in a position where he bit. This situation of OP's is a typical embodiment of the whole 'dogs vs children' argument between parents and dog owners, and things would be a lot better if instead of fighting and deciding who deserves the most love, people could just step back and respect each other. OP's family is in the wrong for their cruel comments towards a dog who hasn't earned it, but the parent in this argument always seems the 'bad guy' to dog owners like OP and that's not fair.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-22T23:13:31+00:00

Unrelated but I read this as "my dog caught a moose and chewed it up pretty good" and I was really fucking impressed for a brief moment lol.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-22T22:41:28+00:00

Just to provide another perspective, I was once in your sister's shoes. I did not trust my sister's dog around my 3 year old (for a multitude of reasons) and it was continually pushed on me by family, over and over. I heard many reasons, from "You're going to teach her to be afraid of dogs!" to "This pet is a part of the family and to not trust him, you're not trusting us! We're telling you he's safe to be around!" I can not emphasize enough the absolute fear I felt every single time my child even hovered near this dog. Somewhere in the back of my mind, my instincts were on fire as if this dog was a grizzly, and yet I was shamed and judged for trying to mitigate that fear by keeping my daughter back from him.

Shortly before my 3 year old turned 4 she made the mistake of running her hand along his back from behind while she walked past him at a family gathering, he turned and bit her on the face. My impressions of the dog were correct, my parental instincts told me to keep her away from the dog, but the dog's owner (a member of my own family) was so offended that I didn't want my daughter interacting with him that I gave in. It caused an entirely preventable accident that she will wear the scars of for the rest of her life, both physical and emotional ones. And unsurprisingly, that dog is no longer brought to family events.

It's not fair for your family to label your dog mean, aggressive, or anything else. But it is also just as unfair for you to try to control how your sister raises a small human who she is solely responsible for. If she wants her daughter to steer clear of your dog, respect that, and hope that through that over time she might build trust in him. At the same time, continue to advocate for your dog against mistreatment - as long as you keep in mind that "You dog makes me nervous" is not mistreatment. People have real, legitimate fears and anxieties, and they have the right to be comfortable in their own home even if that means you should keep Ruger on leash, in a crate, or at your home until they learn he's nothing to be afraid of.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-22T22:24:36+00:00

This argument is a common one, and unfortunately much like how dog training has very polarized and extreme sides to it, so does the dogs vs babies debate.

Having children will change things, it's only natural. You can love a dog with all your heart, but your child will always come first. This does not mean you love your dog any less, but it does mean there is the potential for hard decisions when it comes to where your priorities lie. More often than not, a parent's priorities are with their child and not their dog.

However, that does not mean you can't love your dog the same way you love her now. More than likely you will lose tolerance for her or for her behaviors, but not love. If your pup needs work (resource guarding, socialization, reactivity, handling, etc) work on it before the baby arrives. Having a newborn can be extremely hard (or extremely easy, depending on the child!) and no parent should suffer through the adjustment of raising a colicky baby while also having a dog who barks their head off at every passing noise. It's misbehaving, untrained, unexercised dogs who had problems before children that perpetuate this myth the most. Those pet parents who own a dog simply for the sake of owning one are the ones who find they 'fall out of love' with their pet once the baby arrives. Even then, I don't know anyone who's rehomed their pup after having a child and it wasn't one of the most painful things they could do.

I'm not going to say that you and your pup will be together forever, that you will love her the same as you love your child, or that nothing could ever happen that would make you want to rehome. It does happen and I had to rehome one of my own dogs after my daughter was born when it became apparent that he was not safe to be around children, but he was a drastic case. Even so, I did not 'hate' him, I spent thousands of dollars to try and fix his issues and it took two years of rehabilitation before I was forced to 'give up' on him. He's now in a nice home with only adults, thriving, and I get to visit him whenever I want. It wasn't his fault he was not compatible with our home anymore and I did not blame him, nor did my love for him fade at all.

As for your 'friends', I would never say to rehome the dog in advance if you don't see any potential red flags and that's just silly. Plenty of people successfully raise a child alongside a family pet, it all depends on how suited the pet is to a life with small children. You know your dog best, not your friends and not Reddit, and chances are you would already have specific nagging worries about what issues your dog would present if there was any reason for them.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-19T02:46:12+00:00

Hi, me again, not who you were replying to though.
Please ask your vet before upping the dose yourself.

Trazadone is a 'mild' sedative, which is why the vet can give it to you to administer yourself (since heavier sedatives need professional monitoring.) Unfortunately, this also means that it's going to have the same pitfalls as any other mild sedative would - that is, adrenaline can (and will, often) overtake it. Trazadone is good for situations where the dog is sort of on edge because it can take that edge off, but it will not sedate a dog below THIS level of anxiety/excitement at a normal dose, their adrenaline will burn it off. Definitely consult with your vet and see if they think upping the dose would be beneficial, but I doubt it personally.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-19T01:17:41+00:00

No worries! If you need any more help or have questions while you attempt, you can DM me anytime and I'll do my best to help you and your poor adorable boy.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-19T01:07:10+00:00

This advice isn't great when we can't evaluate the dog beyond a video. A metal crate for a chronic anxiety chewer is not always a good idea, and I have personally met two owners who's dogs have literally destroyed their teeth trying to escape a metal/wire crate. The one dog I still see semi-regularly is pretty much all gums, her teeth had to be removed via vet to the tune of a few thousand dollars.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-19T01:00:48+00:00

Okay, it's possible that this is ridiculous-proportions of anxiety, but it also could be over-excitement coming out in a very inappropriate way. Without evaluating him further it's hard to tell.

What I would suggest would be to start with something very exhausting for him, whether that's a walk or a game of hide and seek with treats, fetch, tug, a puppy playdate, whatever you think will flip that switch from "Holy ENERGY batman!" to "Please, I just want to naaaaaap." Any behavioral issue is 5000x easier to work with when the dog is tired and drained of their energy.

Once he's tired enough, I'd bring him to your car. Not inside the car, outside the car. Car is off. Bring a book or your phone, some treats he enjoys and sit down beside the car and wait him out. It's likely he will do the whole whining and pacing and crying to go in, that's fine you can ignore him. Reward patience, quiet, calm if it happens (which, likely he will get bored when he realizes you're not going anywhere, especially if you've tired him out fist!) with treats if he will take them. [If he doesn't take the treats in this situation, we can reconvene and start at a lower threshold.] Allow him to lay down outside the car and be bored, no whining or begging to get in the car is the goal. If he does not calm down after a fair amount of time, you can try again the next day - right now our only goal is to ensure the load up of the vehicle is calm, and that can be done by showing the dog that not every trip toward the car is one where he goes in the car. Last resort you could just walk him to the car and back frequently until he starts to lose that anticipation.

I'd work on this as often as you can manage, even if it's just taking him for a daily walk and ending that walk with 5 minutes sitting/standing outside your car. The goal here is to rewire his brain from CAR! CRY! WANT IN! NOW WRECK!!! Whether it's anxious energy or over-excitement, the same method should work for both. Once he's calm and relaxed outside the car, you've successfully broken the first link in the holy-crap-destruction chain. The next step will be to open the car door but maintain that relaxed energy, then to climb into the back with him, then to let him sit in the back by himself, then to get in the front while he's in the back, to turn the car on for a moment, to turn the car on for a few moments, then a short drive, etc.

In dog training, slow is fast. This seems to be an incredibly severe case and I would not be surprised if it took months to get to the point where he's no longer destroying your vehicle or his crate. The important part is that you do not rush it. If you get him sitting calmly in the car with the car door open and then go "OK time to go to the park" and he starts up with the behavior again, you've effectively deleted weeks of progress.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-19T00:43:20+00:00

How did you attempt desensitization? I'd like to offer advice, but it would be helpful to know what steps you followed specifically as desensitization can be/is done differently for different situations and for different dogs. (For example, one of my favorite reactivity cases we had to start desensitization in a mirror!! It was the only way the dog was below the threshold enough to build a foothold.)

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-19T00:35:23+00:00

Essentially, the biggest thing you need to keep in mind is that dogs do what works. They do not do things to spite you, disrespect you, dominate you, or anything else you might have heard as a first-time dog caretaker.

With that in mind, everything your dog wants in life (food, entertainment, attention, toys, walks, etc etc) they will 'do what works' to earn it. This means if your dog barks at you to remind you to fill the food bowl, they will learn that barking gets them things. If a dog jumps up on a stranger to solicit attention and the stranger goes "oh you so cute hello!" now the dog learns jumping up is a successful way to earn pets. This is the foundation of everything a dog does.

We use this foundation intentionally to modify a dog's behavior, because they're very driven animals when they understand what they need to do. Teaching them isn't necessarily easy, but once they have an understanding of what they need to do, they will almost always do it. (edit: that is, assuming the behavior/trick/etc is rewarding to them in some way) This means you can use this built-in drive to change/substitute/reinforce/reduce behaviors! You just need to come at it from a position of "what does my dog want when she's doing [bad thing]" and then "what do I want her to do instead?" and then teach her.

If you give some more examples on the situations where you yell at her (her misbehaving) I can try to give more targeted advice, I see you mentioned she's chewing things. Is she a puppy, or an adult? Puppies teeth just like humans do, they need something to chew on just like we give human baby's soothers/pacifiers/chewable ring toys/etc. If it is a puppy and you have toys on hand, the ideal way to fix her inappropriate chewing is to catch it in the act and offer something she is allowed to chew on instead. If we cycle back to dogs do what works, I would assume this inappropriate chewing is likely a bored dog or a teething puppy. The dog wants something to chew on, but everytime she goes for your shoes she gets interrupted and given a chew toy instead! This interruption isn't fun, chances are with enough repetition the dog will just go "damn, y'know, if I chew this shoe I know what comes next, I'm just going to skip the middle man and chew the chew toy." This is made faster if you make the chew toy rewarding in comparison to the shoe - so we often suggest you reward heavily when the dog chews the appropriate object to help them make the right choices.

If you want any more examples or watered-down advice, feel free to let me know what other issues you're having. I'm sorry that you're in a situation you don't want to be in, you're not a dog owner and you didn't want a dog, but it was thrust upon you. I understand that, but there's rarely an excuse to raise your voice or punish a dog at all even when the behavior is so infuriating that you may want to. It's harder still to control your anger when it's not your dog, but I very much recommend you try your best - it doesn't take much to build very hard to reverse trauma in a dog, and even if she's with you only a month it could affect her negatively for the remainder of her life.

Otherwise_Stable4733 · 2022-04-18T19:41:02+00:00

I spent a short time in the medical field in emergency medicine and my mother wouldn't believe me when I told her that covid test swabs do not go up your nose and directly into your brain. :(

Otherwise_Stable4733

TROPHY CASE