Is it okay to hit a puppy?

Answer 1

Answer:It's never OK. In fact, it's a crime in most places. Another Answer:Sure, it's OK. Dumb, stupid, counterproductive and a guarantee that you don't get from the dog what you thought you wanted when you got the puppy, but sure, beat the hell out of it. You can do that, and just like the first answer said, it is a crime in most places, but the animal abuse laws are only generally enforced on TV. So the criminal part is really no problem: just don't do really serious and visible abuse, like wiring the dog's muzzle shut with tight, thin and cutting wire to keep it from barking; that leaves marks that the Canine Police can find, and juries can really get upset about, and newspapers can publish and under no circumstances, leave visible marks from maltreatment on the dog (puppy) in an election year. The media really loves stories about children and dogs and local politics. Remember: the news is so daily, and with CNN -ALL- the time, 24/7. Plus, video is really cheap these days!

As a practical matter, dogs are just like people; kick a child and see how fast it runs up to you bubbling with love and affection. Normally, going for anthropomorphizm is a really good way to miss major points about other animals; however, this one is close to us all.

Being beat upon as a puppy or a child, merely helps them remember as they get older, sometimes a lot older, that you are a source of pain.

On the other hand, if the child or the dog has a slow memory, or little memory, beat away. Punishment works really well in the immediate situation. With children and dogs, it stops cold and on the spot, behavior which is undesired; it just does not have much lasting effect in the change of the mind-set that created the behavior. Meaning, it works as long as it is consistantly applied for each and every undesired behavior, and the one specifically punished. (Given the contents of dogs' heads, you might not ever be sure what you have punished, but, punish away. Just don't turn your back on the free running big-dog- that-was-a-puppy in your later years. Just a thought. :-) )

(Figureing out the undesired behavior and specifically punishing it and nothing else, is a major job: not likely that you're going to be sucessful at the singularity. Almost nobody can figure out the important things in the mind of a dog; children are even more difficult to figure out)

Punishment, has the side effects of teaching the mammal that YOU are a source of real hurt, increased blood pressure, raging galvanic skin response, loss of voluntary bladder control, self defecation, and just the run of the mill, General Activation Syndrome on total negative. YOU are the big CAUSE of everything bad in the life of the animal at the moment. (Of course, that was not your intention, but puppies and children have real problems reading the minds of other animals; they get better at reading minds if they survive puberty. Regreatfully, then it's a little late to have a companion dog, a working dog, a trick dog, an obedience dog, a gun dog or an adult child that wants to visit, much less call home. Unless, of course, you are a really good dog trainer, in which case you would not have asked the question in the first place.)

As previously said, punishment*, that is beating away at the puppy, or the child, is really good way to terminate the immidiate response,** it just does not seem to have much effect in the long run if there are other reinforcements (rewards, good stuff, known only to the dog or the child) comming in over which you have no control.

And changing behavior in the long-run seems to be the major desire with most people with dogs.

Or children, another form of animal. Bigger brain, same background.

Hitting puppies just does not work very well for getting out of dogs what one wants.

* or to use certain learning theory explanations: punishment is the application of an adverse stimulus, or the removal of a non adverse or positive stimulus; getting the diffierence takes some effort but it really works with dogs and children.

** if you can figure out what you want not in the first place. Otherwise, you just activated a lot of low and middle brain stuff by beating upon the dog.

Answer 2

No.

I do not want to hit my puppy. I am trying to convince the others in his life that it's not okay to hit him. I was actually searching for research. Did not intend to post this as a question.

Answer 3

Because he is just a baby he does not know how things are yet soon he will learn and grow and grow and grow! so no please don't