Animal Cruelty

[FlipMode]

Hi all! So here is a thread, well more of a debate than anything about animal cruelty, more specifically the question I am asking is, to what extent do you consider something as animal cruelty?

Here is a story, for ya. Just a moment ago I was walking my dogs, with my friend who walks his dogs with me at that time. And we got to a bit, and there was a cat on top of the wall, my dogs do not really mind once I ell them off they just leave the cats alone. But one of his dogs kept like trying to run forward, and was really agitated by the cat, it is what dogs do right?
Next thing I know, he had kicked his dog he was shouting at the dog to shut up, and kicked it pretty fiercely, not hard enough to do any real damage, but enough that the dog yelped.

At first I was like "Okay, the dog stopped." but then I thought about it, and felt really sorry for the dog , and he was like "Well, she is so annoying!" (he said something else, but you know, kid friendly and all).
So that is that, anyone else have any experiences, opinions? And how far does disciplining go before you start to think "Gee wiz! That was pretty messed up." Interested to hear some of your opinions and stuff! ^^

[KopsTheTerminator]

Don't even get me started on this. I could make a huge rage post about animal cruelty lol.

And yes, I do consider that a mild form of animal abuse. Are you serious? You don't kick someone when they annoy you...

[AdAstrα]

Well you have to be somewhat strict with a dog, or they'll be over the place, maybe even to the point where they become dangerous for people to be around. But violence is completely unacceptable IMO. There are better ways of teaching a dog what is right and what isn't.

[FlipMode]

[quote="QueenOfPrideRock"]Well you have to be somewhat strict with a dog, or they'll be over the place, maybe even to the point where they become dangerous for people to be around. But violence is completely unacceptable IMO. There are better ways of teaching a dog what is right and what isn't.[/quote]

Probably should add, these are small dogs. I mean not young, they are a good 5+ years each but they are small, and are definitely not capable of harming anyone. I forget what breed, but they do not grow much.
And I play football with this guy sometimes, that was not a light kick by any means, and he does have anger issues. I know he felt bad cause he was stroking her after, again though the main point is I wandered if anyone had any experiences, and if so how they reacted.

I mean if it was a random person doing it, I would go mental. But it was a friend so I was more "Dude! What on Earth did you kick her for?"

[Annie]

That was pointless abuse.
However, I have had to kick Annie before (Yes, I kicked my beloved dog, Annie!) But she had grabbed the leg of another dog, who'd just got stitches (Credit to her though, she knew where the weak spot was) and was shaking it violently and I couldn't rip her off any other way. I kicked her in the rump and that was enough to shock her into letting go. I didn't kick her hard enough to do any damage, just enough to get her attention. I'd rather have kicked her, than her rip the other dogs leg off! It was a random attack too, she'd never gone for this dog before and she's never attacked like that before or since. Weird.

I was once at a riding school and a horse was being cheeky and raising it's head when the owner was trying to put it's bridle on. All of a sudden, they grab it's forelock (Fringe), yank it down and punch it twice in the face!! Horses can take a lot of punishmet, a lot more than people think, but that was too much and completely useless, it just made the horse raise it's head even further.

However, I do sometimes think people are a little too soft with horses, which can be just as dangerous. My friend was far too soft with her mums horse and never punished it when it bucked or galloped off. One day it took off galloping and bucking and threw the mother off, breaking her collar bone. I think horses have the finest line when it comes to cruelty and punishment for bad behaviour.

[TheLionQueen]

If I saw someone kicking a dog worse than wat your friend did I would call the humane society. But since it's just that, if one of my my friends did that I would sit them down infront of a computer and show them a bunch of sad stories and sad videos about animal abuse I have done the video thing before to a friend and they stopped being mean to thier dog after like an hour of videos. I don't know if that would work with your friend though.

[Arani]

You do have to be somewhat strict with animals, but they have thoughts and feelings, too. I know some people who don't train their dogs. They've had so many dogs, and they've run each and every one over as they're backing out of their driveway because the dogs dont know to stay away from the driveway. I call that cruelty in it's own way. Also, things like hitting really hard or kicking really hard is pretty cruel. We don't like it, why is it so hard to think that the animal doesn't like it? A slap type of hit if it's not too hard is okay, just to get an animal back into order if it's behaving pretty bad, but nothing that could hurt them badly in any way. Might sting for a few seconds, but that's it. Just somehting that says "That isn't something you should be doing, knock it off right now." So ya. If it's not to excesive than it's needed, else all the animals would be totally out of control. I hope I didn't make that post to confusing...