Yes, once and I don’t regret it. I was 14, deliverying papers on my route and before I knew what was happening I had a beagle rather firmly attached by his teeth to my right calf (I was wearing shorts). It got kicked. Hard.
It was a horse, which I don’t really consider a pet, and the circumstances were that this horse, for no reason at all, bit me on the neck and took a real chunk out. I was hurt, and when hurt I get mad, plus I was about 13 and I did in fact have a really bad temper when I was younger. I immediately began beating the horse. I would have killed her, except I was a skinny little thing and she was a horse.
Funny thing, before that she had never bit me, although she often stepped on me when I was leading her, which I assumed was an accident. It wasn’t an accident, she just didn’t respect me, and after the neck-chomp incident she never stepped on me again.
Other peoples’ dogs, but only if they were coming after me or one of my dogs. Cats, what would be the point?
Unprovoked biting gets a hard flick to the nose or ear, or a swat to the hindquarters. Biting after being accidentally hurt by a human is one thing, but to bite without provocation needs to be dealt with.
This should probably be limited to pets smaller than yourself, as with horses, a (barehanded) strike that would inflict great harm on a smaller animal would just be enough to get their attention.
Several folk embrace the “2 second” rule (I read about it in a book by respected natural horseman John Lyons): if your horse does something disrespectful and dangerous (steps on you, threatens to and/or actually bites you, strikes at you, etc.), you have two seconds to kill that horse. Not correct–kill. Avoiding only the head, you wave, you smack, you strike, you make a shitload of angry noises and make it crystal clear to that horse that they came VERY close to losing their life for such an egregious action.
Of course, one cannot kill a 1000lb animal barehanded, and certainly not in two seconds, but it gets the point across to the horseowner, and the horse.
An open handed-swat on the rump, just to let them know they did something wrong. Have occasionally used a rolled up magazine for the extra reach (hey, dogs are smart, and I had a beagle that would start sprinting as soon as he saw the hand coming down).
Actually, funny thing about that beagle: If he saw a magazine in your hand… no problem, he’d do his thing, come play with you, whatever. If the magazine rolled up, dude was halfway to China in three seconds flat. Little dog was faster than he looked.
But no, never struck a dog with any intent of injury. I like them more than I like people, and I like most people I’ve met.
On occasion, though always regretfully. I’ve had to defend myself or my animals from untrained aggressive ones. I won’t think twice about breaking up a dogfight either, and it it takes me booting the aggressor hard enough to put him down, or out permanently, I’ll do it. I have never struck an animal in anger though.
My dogs have been spanked twice in their spoiled, pampered lives. Both times for opening the gate and cruising around the neighborhood. This is considered a Very Serious Business and is punished accordingly. While I find corporal punishment distasteful and only use it in extremes, it is necessary to impart to them that running away is not acceptable.
Much like on Hyperbole and a half, we have a simple dog and a helper dog. Together they are an unstoppable team. On her own, simple dog will get lost if she cannot see the house and sit wherever she is and cry loudly until someone finds her. Luckily, if simple dog manages to get out somehow, Helper dog will normally come and get one of us to assist her in retrieving her lost sibling; who is normally a few houses away crying forlornly.
With cats, a hiss and a swat (not too hard) gets the point across that they are misbehaving. It’s the language they speak with each other.
I’ve stepped on my cats accidentally so many times, so I wouldn’t count it. Luci has a bad habit of laying on the stairs at night, and she blends in with the carpet, and it’s not fun.
What we do with the dog when she’s misbehaving is to take a rolled up newspaper and slap it against a hard surface. It usually gets her attention. I usually slap it against my palm, and growl at her. She usually backs down, but she’s a very dominant animal.
I have some scars from my cats, but none of them were intentional – one was from my cat climbing down from my shoulders, for example. Another one is on my leg from my old dog jumping down off of my lap, and her claws scratched me. (They didn’t bleed, but I still have the scar)
Maggie’s biggest “punishment”, at least to her, is being picked up – she HATES being held. She’ll squirm and kick and wail like she’s being set on fire. So if I want to punish her, I just hold on to her. Well, for a few seconds, anyways.
Two of my big boy cats sometimes pick on the little girl (who is also brain damaged and has motor impairments that cause her to not be able to defend herself very well). If I catch them at it, boys each get a swat to the forehead. It’s the same thing a mom cat would do to a kitten for unacceptable behavior. They understand it perfectly and no one gets hurt. If stalking continues (rarely) then the stalker gets shut in the bathroom for 15 minutes.
Other than that, Chico LOVES to be spanked. He runs up to the back of the couch, bites down on the edge of the arm, and wiggles his butt until I spank him. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s fun for a minute, then seems just plain weird and I have to walk away. He can be a bit - mouthy - too, and sometimes gets a swat across the nose when he bites my arm hard enough to leave dents. Usually, he just does a little nuzzle and touch with teeth, but sometimes forgets he’s biting momma and has to be reminded. Then he leaves me alone to go find his friend Nimbus and they tussle till they drop.
The cats get tapped on the nose of the forehead when they bite. It annoys them and conveys the message that I don’t tolerate what they just did.
The horse gets slapped on the shoulder, side, or rump for major infractions such as biting or not respecting my space. This is usually accompanied by my shouting “Quit!” or “Move!”. From her reaction, I believe this is startling, but neither painful nor distressing.
I’ve swatted my cat a handful of times when he was doing something that might hurt him if I didn’t send a clear message - like when he was trying to eat a metal twist tie. I try to be gentle with him because I got him as an adult and it’s been reported he may have a history of abuse. He’s afraid of everything. I have never hit my cat hard enough to injure him.
I didn’t mention breaking up fights in my earlier posts, but I’ll step in there, too. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never intentionally caused actual damage to an animal (putting down a fatally wounded animal doesn’t count), but I’ve caused some hurt when I broke up fights. I figure it’s better for the dogs to have sore ribs from me than to be torn open and bloody from each other.
After watching horses “correct” each other, I don’t think the slaps I’ve had to administer sometimes could possibly hurt. A young stallion went after my wife’s mare, and that mare kicked him so hard it would put a human in the hospital. All it seemed to do to the stallion was hurt his feelings. When I checked him later, I couldn’t even find a bruise.
a few hindquarters swats from time to time for miss maggie, who is of the opinion that every damn piece of furniture in the house is her personal scratching post, but mostly a spray bottle of water to discourage my resident brat with fur from such pursuits. occasionally a gentle soccer lift too if she’s under my feet and my hands are full of a laundry basket or some such.
turk, on the other hand, is the best-behaved kitty on the planet and has never so much as had a hand lifted to him.
when i had dogs, there were establishing dominance issues, which were taught to me by a k-9 trainer friend, which involved a lot of looming and hollering (no striking the animal. deemed counterproductive.) when they Did Bad Things.
my watershed dominance-establishing incident, in which to this day i am surprised my neighbors didn’t call the cops on me for ‘animal cruelty’ was my young german shepherd hans’ Very Bad Habit of getting past me or another family member out the front door to go chase cars.
the silly beast had already been car-struck once (not hard, thank god. the poor driver had amazing reflexes even while having a major heart attack when my dog ran out in front of her), which you’d think would have cured him of it.
oh, no.
up until this particular day i hadn’t been able to catch him - but that one day i was in the right place at the right time by being down at the mailbox at the edge of the street. i was able to snatch him by the collar right out of the road. i dragged him back into the yard, threw him on his back and proceeded to bounce him off the grass all the while screaming at him at the top of my lungs.
i forgot where i was.
by the time i ran out of steam and the dog was reduced to a quivering pile of alpo, every eye in the neighborhood was upon me. by that point, i wasn’t just a floor show, but the main event. :eek:
con: i immediately became the crazy dog lady for the rest of my tenure in that neighborhood. another five years.
pro: that was the last time hans tried to muscle his way out the front door or run into the street. ever. 
Yeah, same here. I’ve occasionally had to remind people that a horse is covered in… wait a minute… horsehide. An open-handed whack to a fleshy area is effective due to its shock value (“Wha?! Is somebody back there?”), not its potential for injury.
Yes, I’ve struck horses, dogs, cats with my hand many times. Mostly for punishment, sometimes out of anger (often coupled with self-defense).
I’ve never hit an animal with the intention of injuring or killing it, and I’ve never injured or killed one with my hands. The only time I’ve hit hard with the intent to hurt is when I was breaking up fights - which has happened many times over the years.
I’m not proud of it but I admit I have struck my aunt’s cats (who lives with us) in anger. 
It was largely because I was an arse and because we couldn’t afford a plane ticket for my parents to go along with a ticket I had won in a contest, I scapegoated my aunt’s cat for the lack of money and struck her a couple of times with a fly-swatter. I’m pretty weak so there were no wounds on her thankfully before I was restrained.
I’ve firmly smacked our cat on the nose or forehead when he does something bad, like swatting me in the face with a claw or pooing in the bathtub. Not enough to cause any kind of mark or injury, just a one-off “No, don’t do that!” tap.
When my dog was much younger, and much more rambunctious (she’s a Boston terrier), I am ashamed to admit I have smacked her pretty hard once or twice, out of sheer frustration and anger. Bostons can be very willful and stubborn (much like this one’s owner ;)) and I was new to dog training back then and didn’t understand how to establish alpha status. It wasn’t necessarily productive, so I worked on training techniques and my own self-control.
Thankfully, my sweet little girl immediately forgave me for my training mistakes. She is now 15 years old and is a medical trainwreck, very wobbly, sleeps all day. My soon-to-be exBF likes to walk in the house and fuck with her until she’s jumping around, barking like a two year old. This is extremely hard on her heart (she’s in congestive heart failure, among other ailments). She gets very threatened by him and very defensive because she also has cataracts and cannot see very well. So after months of this: him walking in and waking her up out of a dead sleep to “play,” she finally hauled off and bit the shit out of him. He totally had it comin’! She was defending herself and didn’t bite him the other 200+ times he did that to her. I was not in the room when this went down, so I asked if he hit her. He said, “Hell yeah, I hit her!”
He will be moved out by the end of the week. What kind of douchebag hits a 15-year-old blind, senile, dying dog? That’s like walking into a nursing home and beating the shit out of your 105 year old grandmother.
I post this to make the point that, while I really don’t believe that hitting an animal is the most effective training technique, I do understand that sometimes it’s the only thing that works (especially with a very willful animal) and sometimes, shit happens. That said:
A) I have hit my dog maybe twice in her life, and that’s when she was a tough-as-nails young bully dog with enough attitude for 3 or 4 dogs. I wouldn’t dream of doing it now when she can barely get off the couch by herself.
B) Just because I can cuff my cubs in the head does not mean that you can. Get between me and my babies and I *will *go all Grizzly Mama on your ass.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Yes, 3 or 4 years ago. It was out of anger/in punishment, and I’m not proud of it. :\
As the story goes, a cat (who’s been mistreated by my folks for peeing on a leather couch…repeatedly) was passed over to me in lieu of a shelter. She promptly started peeing on my (non-leather) couch.
Apparently that cat needed her litter box cleaned twice daily; once that started happening, the peeing stopped.