I beat my old cat against my sofa once. To be fair, it was a reaction to him latching onto my wrist, and it was less a conscious action and more “There’s an animal hanging off my arm by its teeth aargh aargh get it off get it offfff!” It seemed to bother me more than him.
I swat my big dog occasionally. He seems to understand and he loves me more than anyone else in the house. I don’t do it hard enough to be more than a momentary shock and I’ve noticed it only takes holding my hand up now for him to settle down. I may be all kinds of wrong for training him like that but it’s working. Until him I never hit a dog and I was completely against it, but then I didn’t work with dogs as big as him. I don’t think it hurts him; he just knows he’s misbehaved when I smack him on the rump.
We have a Dobie who needs a good thump now and then to get her attention. When she was being trained, my husband had to establish dominance (and I’m sure glad it was him and not me). Now, the time she grabbed the pork loin off the counter, she’d have gotten fewer whacks if she’d not growled at us…
She gets more kisses and snuggles than anything else, though.
Decades ago, I once had to kill a pet rabbit who had been terribly maimed by a neighbor dog and was bleeding to death. I actually had advice from a book on how to kill a rabbit but bungled the job somehow. The experience was exquisitely horrible.
Other than that, I’ve had to manhandle, but not strike, the semi-feral cat we took in; he several times began sinking his fangs into my arm or leg, and I would grab his head and forelegs and restrain him while pushing him away from me. But that was mostly self-defense to minimize the bite damage, not for discipline, and he’s getting a lot better nowadays.
Generally I believe in positive discipline instead. It’s what brought the cat around, and I’ve had total success using it with our two dogs, a pit bull and a pit bull mix, who have never hurt us intentionally (Simone has crashed into me while running around excitedly, however.) The dogs are extremely sensitive to our approval; if things get out of hand, all I have to do is turn my back and ignore them for a few moments and they immediately sink into truly Gothic levels of self-reproach. I can’t imagine what hitting them would do to their psyches.
My dog is very big and very intent on having his way on certain things. We had one big tussle over where he would be riding in my car (I say in the back, he felt that he should have a free choice - perhaps even driving.) I’m not proud of how far the debate went but he growled at me first, which I think is an almost unpardonable sin in a dog. We’ve never needed to discuss the seating arrangements again.
Yes, I’ve struck several animals when they were being aggressive. I was indeed angry about being attacked, but that wasn’t why I hit them. I hit them because there’s way in hell I’m going to just stand there and be bitten or clawed. Best way to stop that is to make it clear that if they start a fight, it’s one they’re gonna lose.
More like pushed away, and it pains me to say it. I love dogs more than anything, but I had a dog who liked to chew things, and she got hold of one of my favorite shoes and wouldn’t let go, so I either popped her one on the nose or grabbed the shoe while it was still in her mouth, then pushed her away and popped her on the nose when the shoe was finally free. I hate that I did it, and I hugged her right afterwards, but I didn’t know what else to do.
And before anyone says anything, I did start making sure my shoes were in the closet with the door closed after that.
Ugh, yes, once trying to injure them. They tried to attack me, my dog got in between us and both dogs got scuffed up, though theirs was far worse. It was horrible and horrifying. The dog’s owners, who came out to the scuffle, said things that indicated the dog was neither walked nor properly socialized. So it’s not a real surprise that it happened.
I still can’t help but giggle. When my husband and I moved in together, he had two cats and I had two cats. My cats were smallish, lovey dovey, and awesome. His cats were fat, annoying, aggressive with my cats, and standoffish.
Jack had just finished chasing Cosette (causing her to pee on herself). He saw me and stopped. I kick an enormous red exercise ball at him. He was across the room so the thing literally had to roll at least 25 feet before it hit him. He had to see it coming. He is a cat for og’s sake. Nope.
The big ass red exercise ball hit him square in the face. I almost died laughing. My husband, not so much.
There’s no option for, “Yes, but I was asleep and I thought I was fighting with my little brother.”
This only happened once, by the way. But I’ve had pretty good indication that I pet Tikva in my sleep.
I said no but then it occurred to me that my littlest cat liked to bite when she was a kitten and would get a tap on the nose to remind her it wasn’t cool.
I have also tripped over both cats on occasion sometimes resulting in them being kicked by accident. (They seem to love to get underfoot when I am carrying a laundry basket and can’t see them.)
May I ask if you have?
BTW, does threatening count? (Even if they’re empty?)
I kicked a dog in the ribcage and punched another one across the the snout as hard as I could. Both belonged to other people and both were having a go at being biting dogs.
Other. Out of fear. A large dog attacked me on the street once, I kicked the dog very hard with boots, he left.
Had a ferret some years back who was bite-y. She got flicked on the nose a lot - it was the only language she understood. Ferrets can bite hard.
Nikki, our younger cat, got bopped on the nose as a kitten when she got too forceful while playing, same as her momma or any other cat would have done. She’s pretty good now, at age 3, about keeping her claws in when she plays with us.
Al, our older cat, went through a very nasty peeing-on-things phase. At the time I sometimes moved to the living room to sleep, and one time woke to find that he had peed on me while I was sleeping. The next morning, the Other Shoe and I were having some breakfast when Al came into the room, walked up to my still-tangled blankets, and started to squat. We both hollered “Aw, HELL no!” and Mr. Horseshoe chucked his spoon at the cat’s back as hard as he could.
The peeing stopped shortly thereafter. Might have been the fact that our other (male) cat died, thus resolving their territorial dispute, but I like to think the spoon helped.
If my dogs do something they knew they’re not supposed to do, I smack them in their back legs. Where all the fat is. I never hit them any where else, though. I don’t like wail on them. It’s just a bit of a hit and swift.
Once I took a dog and literally flung him across a street with the great hopes he’d die. He tried to bite and huirt my dog, who I was walking. When I got him to get away and told him to get away he tired to bite me. So, I got so angry I snapped. I also kicked him.
I have smacked my dogs fairly hard, but the younger one being mostly beagle and retriever, it takes some force to get her to notice you if she’s wound up. I have stepped on or tripped over our two black cats more times than I can count. I have whacked an insane rooster with a whiffle ball bat. However, I have received a lot more scars and damage from animals than I have ever inflicted on them.
I’ve intentionally made my dog run into the wall many times while playing fetch. Does that count?
For punishment, when I was younger, less wise, and more temperamental (with different pets than I have now). No more. Though if we’re talking self defense, that’s a different issue.
Other, in pain and fear. One night, in flip flops, I was walking from my house to my neighbor’s (about 15 feet from door to door). Another neighbor’s ferret was loose, and it popped out of the bushes and latched onto the back of my ankle with its teeth. I yelled, flung it off, and then kicked it in the face hard enough to send it sprawling, giving me enough time to run back into my house - it chased me the whole way. Nasty wound, too.