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

[Verp]

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.

 

[royohz]

A friend of my brother used to do that with his dog, he gave up when he came back home once and found it had not only peed on the floor, but it had done to itself what they did and rolled around in it. So it's a pretty ineffective method I would say.

 

[Jonluw]

From what I've heard it's been proven that if you are going to house train a dog by shoving its nose into its piss, you have to do it within a second of the dog actually doing the pissing.

I don't suppose rabbits have a better long term memory, or ability to process anything as complicated as "I peed on the sofa a while back, now the master's shoving my nose into it, that must mean I am not supposed to pee in the sofa"
That just isn't going to happen. It will not be a way for you to housetrain your pet, but merely a way for your mother to vent her anger.

I don't know about animal cruelty though.

 

[Falconsgyre]

Not true, my dog has never looked guilty when passing buy knocked over trash cans that she didn't knock over. The urine thing is kinda a dick move, the dog will know it's their urine, but since they can't conceive of any other way for the urine to be there, the only reasonable expectation would be that they must have done it and are therefore guilty.

Do you consistently scold her whenever the trash can is knocked over? If not, then she's not going to look guilty because she doesn't think it's wrong. Anyway, there are actual, real studies that show this. Pick up any modern popular book on dog behavior and it'll have this information in there for you. Dogs simply can't conceive of cause and effect in that way. There's an outside chance your dog is a genius and has made this mental breakthrough, but it's astonishingly unlikely, so I'm going to discount that possibility.

 

[krazykidd]

This is why humans shouldn't have pets. Animals are meant for food nothing else. ( Note humans are animals too , just that we are on the top of the food chain , or we would be eaten by some other animal as well ). Animals eat other animals , thus is the circle of life .

OT: no not animal cruelty , just human stupidity.

 

[sniddy_v1legacy]

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!"

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....

 

[Tsaba]

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?

 

[Elfgore]

It works. One of my uncles or something house trained a dog that way.

 

[MasterOfWorlds]

Animal cruelty? I don't think so. Now, if she didn't clean out the area where the rabbit normally goes, or caged the rabbit up and didn't clean the cage out, sure. Not what she did though.

 

[Riccan]

No, it is not. If she through it across the room and onto a wall for doing something that one of you should have been watching out for, then yes. Granted, as others have said, if she punished the animal in that manner right when it happened, fine, if not, than it was a waste of time and confused the hell out of the rabbit.

 

[manic_depressive13]

My mother did that to my dog. I wouldn't call it animal cruelty, but it is pretty fucked.

 

[Dango]

That certainly sounds like a horrible thing to do to an animal.

 

[IronicBeet]

People do that to dogs all the time. It's not very effective unless you do it directly afterwards (Not sure how it works in the case of a rabbit, though), though. It might be a little mean, but it's definitely not animal cruelty.

 

[Gladiateher]

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.

 

[Wardi Boi]

Well, she got a little over exited and peed on the sofa (specifically on a blanket that was on the sofa) and my mum thought it right to introduce the pee to her face, to "let her know" she's doing wrong.

Since I read that in the wrong way, my mind is now extremely disturbed...

 

[Simeon Ivanov]

Kinda harsh. I have a rabbit and I wouldn't do that to him, simply because rabbits are stupid and don't know this stuff.

 

[kinggamecat]

as cruel as it is (I don't use that method) I've heard it works with dogs and sometimes cats, but I'm not sure if bunnies are smart enough comprehend what it did wrong.

 

[Anah'ya]

Considering everyone one of my dogs have learned this in a very short time, I would say yes it works. And you really think that because you train animals you know everything that works and doesn't work in every case? Yeah just go ahead and keep believing in your delusions, but don't try to condescend to people over the internet, it doesn't make you look smart or more professional.

It is called behavioural science. You are wrong. It is simple as that. As others have pointed out, dogs will cease to be able to make a connection between the deed and the punishment if more than 2 seconds have passed. All the dog realises is that PISS IS BAD and SHIT IS BAD -- eventually they make the connection that PISS IS OKAY and SHIT IS OKAY when outside, but they do NOT connect it to the act of shitting or pissing. Instead of shoving the dogs face into their shit, the dog owner should do the same thing to him/herself to remind him/herself that they should have paid more attention.

Yes. Dogs are smart. But they are not humans and do not think as you do. They are wired differently.

You may proceed to argue and believe you are right, as you will continue to do, but I honestly do not care. I know the difference in results and studied the subject long enough to feel comfortable with it. I just feel sorry for any animal that has to put up with owners who understand jack and still cling onto old and obsolete training methods. Whether that is rubbing piss on an animals nose or using spike/choke collars.


(As for this actually being animal cruelty? Ha. No. Dogs and rabbits equally do not give a "shit" (ho-ho) about shit or piss. Its the act of the forceful grab that is the punishment. Dogs eat shit, rabbits eat shit and dogs do not care if a dog pisses on their nose while they sniff another ones genitals. Again. Animals are wired differently, people just think they are humans with four legs sometimes. It is fairly bewildering.)