One of the worst things an individual could do is abuse helpless animals, especially dogs, which are some of the most loyal pets you could have around you.
You should always try to understand how an animal perceives you and the psychology behind their way of thinking. Most dogs will understand pretty quickly if they are mistreated and are definitely not aloof when it comes to all kinds of abuse, especially the physical type of abuse.
This is why it is crucial to reconsider your approach and your coliving with an animal if you even have to ask “What can I do if my dog is scared of me because I beat him?”.
I don’t even think I have to explain why physical abuse is always bad, regardless of who it is pointed to, but I`ll try to give it a go. Beating your dog will have a huge psychological impact on the animal. The dog might even get into a mental protective shell, refusing to follow even basic commands, refusing to eat around you, walk with you, or even refusing to stay in the same room with you.
You might think that a light beating from time to time would go unnoticed, but even this could have a severe consequence over the long term in terms of your dog’s trust in you.
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This is why, if you’re an abusive type of dog owner, you should really take a step back, breathe, and then focus on completely changing the way you’re interacting with your dog and your discipline techniques. If you don’t, your dog will soon become fearful of you and very unhappy in your presence.
This article should give you a pretty good understanding of why beating your dog is bad and what you should try to do instead of this when training it.
Reasons For Why Beating Your Dog Is Bad
1. Physical Harm
The first and most important reason why you should never beat a dog is that you will cause him physical harm.
It’s never acceptable to physically harm another creature, especially a defenseless one. Your dog might suffer intensive pain for quite a while and this would be detrimental to a healthy, happy life.
If you really love your dog, you would never want him to suffer. You should want to get a dog to make their life better, not worse. If you only want to get a pet to have an animal to lash on, then maybe you shouldn’t get a pet in the first place.
You will have a lot more success in educating your dog by using some other ways that don’t include abuse.
2. Instates the undesired fear factor
You can’t expect to have a healthy relationship with a smart pet like a dog if you beat him. Physical harm will easily turn into fear, which would make the animal lose his trust in you.
You can never expect a terrified dog to be friendly, especially towards his abuser. A terrified dog will choose one of two paths: they will either become fearful of you to the point that they completely avoid you, or they would become aggressive as a defense mechanism.
This is why you should avoid any type of abuse, especially during the dog training phase, when most people get easily annoyed by their dog and his inability to learn some of the tricks. Beating will not only be useless, but it might even be counterproductive, making the dog completely ignore your commands.
A better way of training is going for positive affirmations. This type of training will make the dog understand that listening to you is a good thing which would come with praise and even a treat from time to time. it. This is such a productive technique that most professional dog trainers are using it.
It should never come to the point where you feel the need to beat your dog, especially since it is proven to yield very undesirable results. Not only is it a very unsuccessful way of enforcing any behavior in your dog, but it is also inhumane.
Keep in mind that there is no middle ground in this. You can’t just try being abusive for a little while and then move on to more peaceful training techniques because it will be extremely difficult to regain the dog’s trust when they already are in a state of fear.
3. Makes training of the dog more difficult
You never want to beat a dog if you want to have any chance of properly training them.
Most dogs will completely refuse to listen to any commands when they will consider you a threat. Beating will cause your dog to experience fear to a level that will make him refuse to even be around you.
They will associate you with something bad and their defense systems will tell them to stay away from you.
The constant state of fear will make the dog completely ignore anything new you’re trying to teach him. This will make some people even angrier, causing them to lash out at the pet yet again, making things even worse than they previously were.
Related Questions
1. What Should I Do If Dog Is Scared Of Me?
If you just got a dog and they seem to be afraid of you then the most important thing is to have patience. Stay close to them, offer them affection, and never make eye contact in a threatening way. Following these steps will make the dog understand pretty quickly that you are not a danger.
2. Do Dogs Forgive and Forget When You Hit Them?
Dogs are pretty forgiving creatures and they will forget most one-time events pretty quickly. That being said, when it comes to repeated abuse, this might create some connections inside their brains that will be harder to remove. Hitting your dog will not only produce very poor results in terms of training and inducing discipline, it will also make the dog create a connection between you and danger.
Conclusion
Your dog should never be scared of you because you beat him. It’s never OK to hit an animal unless it is for defensive reasons. Most dogs will take abuse pretty hard and will hide inside a mental shell when they are faced with an abuser.
