vi·o·lence
noun
behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
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When it comes to interactions with their animals, most people don’t equate how they resolve behavior problems with violence. There’s all sorts of other names they use for their own behavior, like “corrections” or “punishment”.
“I had to correct him” or I had to punish him” sounds so much better than “I had to get violent with him”.
It’s amazing how people use language to justify what they know is wrong. If we didn’t know deep down inside that it was wrong, why would we make up an entirely new word (spanking) to justify hitting our kids? Why would we call a stick we use to threaten or hit our equines a “carrot stick” instead of just calling it a stick, or a hitting stick?
Things like certain high pitched sounds, yelling, intimidating body language, shaker cans, spray bottles, shock collars, prong collars, whips, crops, hitting, kicking, elbowing, slapping, pinching, etc. are all meant to, at a minimum, make the animal uncomfortable enough to stop doing whatever a person doesn’t want them to do.
Some people swear by some of these things and are convinced that their animal’s behavior problems cannot be eliminated without them.
The fact is though, violence is a choice, not a necessity. If your dog doesn't sit when you tell them to, you're choosing to loom over them threateningly or push their bottom down into the position you want instead of teaching them the behavior and reinforcing it consistently so that when you ask they'd rather do that for you than anything else.
Most of the violence we enact against our animals comes after the fact. After the animal is doing or has already done the thing. People will perform these acts of violence over and over again each time their animal does the undesirable behavior (which is really just abuse, by the way) instead of preventing their animal from repeating the behavior in the first place, or teaching them to do a more appropriate behavior instead.
We are a reactive species, not a proactive one. It takes effort to be proactive and manage our animals to prevent problem behaviors. It takes effort and skill to teach our animals to do other behaviors that we deem more appropriate than the behaviors we see as a problem.
It’s a choice people make every day to be reactive instead of proactive. People don’t have to use violence. They choose to use violence.
What choice are you going to make today?