[mrexroad]

Sure, physical pain is absolutely part of life and unavoidable. Yet, it is not an effective tool for either parenting or raising dogs. This has been consistently shown, both for raising children as well as dogs, in research over past few decades. All you do is condition fear and creating emotional trauma that will leave them less able to cope and process emotional pain later in life without resorting to “getting out the belt” for their kids.

Patenting is brutally hard, exhausting, and often unrewarding work. But if you’re burnt out and find yourself reaching for the belt because your hour of free time is being disrupted by some undesirable behavior then just step out of the house for a few minutes. Young kids (and puppies) crave attention and removing the attention is more effective than giving attention by conditioning a fear response.