Would this be animal cruelty? Or is my mum correct?

[Anah'ya]

You sir have just hit the nail on the head and I salute you

If your animal fouls up, it's probably you did 1st

Only time our dog ever broke house training, we didn't spot her at the door in time...

So many people believe so much BS....and think an animal thinks like a human....

Praise the good ignore the bad and learn from your mistakes

EDIT:Ignore the bad unless you can catch them then and there that 2nd and tell them off while doing it, shouting at a dog for destroying something an hour later and waving it in the face only tells them your scary....

Why. Thank you.

Bullshit, animals remember a lot more then what they were just doing, and they know the smell of their own urine, putting their nose in their mess and scolding them is completely acceptable

It's not so much a matter of them not remembering, but rather of them connecting what they did with the punishment/reward. Think about it like this: You wake up, do a bunch of stuff that day and in the afternoon, a guy walks into your room, starts yelling in a foreign language you do not understands and puches you in the face. Unless you happened to be doing something at the moment, you'll stand there wondering why the fuck did he just punch you. If you get punched just as you finish shitting on his bed, you'll likely get the idea.

But if he shows you what he is yelling about (brings you to the sink and points the the dirty dishes you left there) then you are going to know what he is talking about. I'm not saying that you should beat your dog, but I am saying that showing your dog what they did wrong and scolding them (using your scolding tone words don't seem[footnote]I know dogs don't truly understand people but they do start to recognize the way certain words sound and associate them with the actions[/footnote]to matter) then they will learn what they did wrong rather quickly

Pointing at the dirty dishes is only going to work if you know leaving dirty dishes is a bad thing to do in the first place. If I had no idea that it's common courtecy to wash the dirty dishes and I had trouble piecing concepts like this together (much like non-human animals do), you know what I'd probably do if someone whose language I don't understand started scolding me and pointed at the dirty dishes in the sink expectantly? I'd take the dishes and pile them up on a different table. Or maybe I'd stop using dishes altogether and eat my food straight from the countertop. I could even misinterpret the scolding in such a way that I stop eating anything inside the house because I'm afraid that person is going to punish me.

It is NOT any kind of efficient training to point an animal's nose at something that they don't view as bad and expect it to understand why you're sounding angry. It wouldn't be the first time when an animal that is being taught something becomes anxious and nervous during any time when it's doing something it's received a punishment before because the training method wasn't precise enough. Doing training right makes sure you don't have to correct another bad behavior brought on by the training.

Thank you for explaining this way better than I ever could today: And putting it into "human" terms.

 

[Hagi]

I wouldn't call it nice, but neither would I call it animal cruelty.

I mean from what I understand the rabbit suffered no injury of any kind whatsoever and this isn't day-to-day behaviour from your mother.

Just bad luck, rabbit pissed off your mom at an opportune time. It happens. I'm sure we all remembers times as children when our parents were pissed from something else and we did a little thing wrong causing them to give us a harsh punishment. It happens.

 

[BrassButtons]

I wouldn't call that animal cruelty, but I would call it an owner failure moment. The rabbit urinated on the sofa because she couldn't get to her toilet. If you have your pet away from where it is supposed to relive itself, you either have to pay close attention so you can get it there in time, or else accept that something may get pissed on (This is even more fun with rats, who use urine to mark things--they pee on everything and no amount of training will help). So rubbing your rabbits nose in the urine won't do any good, but reminding your mom to pay attention might.

That said, while training your dog (or rabbit), make sure you always have a rolled up newspaper within easy reach. So once your dog (or rabbit) does something wrong and you witness the result of that deed, proceed with grabbing the newspaper and whacking yourself over the back of the head real hard while saying: "I did not pay enough attention!"

I know dog owners who would benefit greatly from this method

 

[SsilverR]

Rabbits aren't like dogs, training them will either be impossible or extremely difficult depending on the rabbit.

First of all, your mum was wrong but not for the reasons you think, Rubbing its face in it will do nothing and only confuse the rabbit and give in unnecessary anxiety, there's no education value in those actions whatsoever. On another note, you're really giving that animal too much credit by thinking things like "My rabbit knows she did wrong" .... no, she doesn't have a fucking clue, they have no concept of "toilets" and their idea of hygiene is very different from ours, even if they weren't brought up in the wild, the wild is still engraved in their subconscious and they're still lesser critters (intelligence wise, compared to other domesticated animals)

If you truly love your rabbit you'll learn more about how their psychology works and take steps to ensure that this doesn't happen often... even if it's little things like timing how long the food takes to run through.

good luck.

 

[Woodsey]

Well, if its trained already, then it seems like overkill if its just a mistake.

And I'm not sure how an animal is supposed to understand WHAT it did wrong. I'm sure it knows that its done something wrong given its just had its face wiped in piss, but I doubt it knows what.

Less animal cruelty, more just dickish behaviour.

 

[Headsprouter]

to introduce the pee to her face,

Are you trolling or just really stupid..... am I getting this right, that's the animal cruelty? Really? Putting the bunnies face in it's own urine, that's it?

Well, it sounded like an interesting thread, so you came, and you gave an opinion. Thanks. But yes, there is some exaggeration in the title. But then again, TV advertisements say male deoderant is a "summon female human" spell.

 

[Headsprouter]

I've trained over sixty dogs using this method. No idea whether it works for bunnies or not. No it's not animal cruelty it's just displaying dominance. Do rabbits understand dominance? No idea.

Well, wild rabbits have EPIC fights for dominance over the rest, so I'd assume yes.