Friend's parents abusing puppy

[claudia666]

HI all,
I need some advice. My bestfriend has this adroable black puppy that's name is Mugsy. But the problem is that her parents abuses this poor little animal. When ever the poor thing has an accident in the house they smack him really hard across the face. they think this is an effective house training method.
I really like her parents but not what they are doing to the dog. What can i do? i'd like to report it to someone but i don't want her parents to hate me. Can i report this and stay unnamed? Please help me!

[chico2]

I suggest you talk to the parents,tell them the proper way to dicipline a puppy and hitting him is not the way,they will end up with a frightened,skiddish dog...who from sheer fright will have accidents inside.
It's the same as hitting a little baby for soiling her diaper..
I don't know how old you are,maybe they will not listen to you,but you can always print out a page from here about puppy-training and give it to them.Poor puppy,he's suffering with noone to help him,he does not understand why they hurt him :sad:

[twodogsandacat]

100% agree. Show them how easy it is. The puppy is probably giving them signs but they aren't reading them correctly.

There is no need to report it if you can stop it. Even our local SPCA rather educate than lay charges in most of the cases.

Good luck Claudia666.

[kandy]

Perhaps you could print out the training articles, and just leave them on their kitchen counter or something. Are both of the parents doing this? If not, then I would approach the one who doesn't participate in the hitting, asking if they would consider reading the article. Good Luck with whatever you decide to do.

[BeagleMum]

I am sort of in a similar situation except it is other people telling me that I should be beating my dog to show him who is the boss. I absolutely refuse and told them that.

I agree that you should talk to either your friend or her parents. Maybe they don't realize what they are doing.

[Schwinn]

I agree that I don't think there is a need to report them. I don't think they are abusing him, per se, but rather using an ineffective training method. I don't think they realize this. I know I didn't until we got Daisy and we actually read about training, and this is after growing up with four or five dogs throughout my life. I have guilt for some of the times I smacked her out of anger for being bad. I consider myself lucky that she loves me so much, and my wife will be the first to tell you that Daisy is my world. I'd just let them know what you know about training. I wouldn't even say, "you shouldn't do that", or "There is a better way". I'd just say, "You know, one way that works well is..."

[Writing4Fun]

I agree that education is the better route here, but I also know that a lot of adults won't take advice from someone as young as you, even though you're more knowledgeable than they are in this matter. You can try dropping helpful hints, like Schwinn suggested, but if they don't listen, can you get your parents to try? Do they plan on taking the puppy to obedience classes at all?