Pet trainingg vs Pet abuse

Kuala Lumpur: In Southeast Asia, the younger generation is also becoming a major group of pet owners, with nearly half of the pet owners being 26-35-year-olds. As pets that live with humans, they must adapt to human habits. Therefore, the human training of pets is essential. Many people say that training pets are like educating children, so let's take a look at the views of the younger generation, who have no experience in childcare, on training pets.

"Training pets to adapt to human habits is a must. After all, the pet is living in the same space with us. "

Zhong Qi, 21, is a student at UTAR. While living in China, she adopted a Linqing lion cat named Tong Tong（瞳瞳）. She mentioned that Tong Tong din’t use to the litter box when she first arrived at her house and would defecate anywhere in the house.

She added that most pets now live in urban buildings with people，thus the pets have closer relationship with the owner. Zhong also showed a chat about a pair of roommates who had a disagreement over training their pets. The fight between those two roommates took place in a pet-keeping exchange group. One side insisted that it was the kitten that bit its owner and needed to be trained harshly; the other felt that the other side was overtrained and could be considered abusive.

Figure.1 Tong Tong

Again, what kind of training is “normal” or pets abuse ?

"It's all about LOVE ."

Gao, 21, a student studying at Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has a British Shorthair Cat named Xue Gao（雪糕） in his dormitory with his housemates. He said that the training for the pet is not to change its nature and turn them completely submissive thing to people. Instead, it's all about making them living comfortable with people. He mentioned that Xue Gao used to chew paper shells in the middle of the night, it always wake everyone up and hide inside the garbage can. Behaviors like these are inherently wrong and need to be corrected.

Figure.2 Gao and Xue Gao

"Pets can retain their habits, but such habits must not be intrusive and hurtful."

Ge Yan, UCSI, a junior in college. A month ago, her family adopted a one-and-a-half-month-old stray cat and named it Nao Nao（闹闹）. She finds the kitten's personality very "wild". Nao Nao does not like people's proximity, and will make claws to scratch people, bite people, and other harmful behavior.

She mentioned that it is not feasible for someone to train a pet. Once, when a friend first got a cat, he shouted at the kitten because the cat hurt him, and some actions hurt the kitten. The kitten was a little timider, so it was scared out of its stress reaction and had a reaction of incontinence. Ge Yan believes that the owner's punishment for the pet doing something bad should be based on the premise that the pet will not be injured and will not have a stress reaction.

For the training of pets, Ge Yan feels that it should not be too harsh. She believes that some habits are unchangeable for pets. For example, cats like to drink flowing water. Owners can purchase a cat water fountain with a pump. Cats with a better choice will not go to drink water from the owner's cup.

Figure.3 Nao Nao when it was first adopted.

Figure. 4 Nao Nao when biting

Cai Yiwei, 21 years old, UTAR student. One of the most annoying things about living with pets is dealing with their excrement; Cai Yiwei adopted a cat that would not go to the litter box at first. At first, he took the trouble to clean up the kitten's excrement and put it in the litter box, trying to make the cat understand where its toilet was. Then it turned out that it didn't work at all. Then he took the cat to the "crime scene" and told it loudly that it was wrong, and then took the cat with him to put the excrement in the litter box and let the cat deal with it by itself.

Figur.5 Odin

Chen Yurui, 21 years old and a student at Fujian University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has done a lot of preparation with her parents to get a cat. A month ago, a month-and-a-half-old ragdoll cat named Yomi came to her house. She talked about the many bad things Yomi does.

To help the kitten correct bad behaviors, she felt that she should train it right away when it does something wrong. For example, when the kitten steals the owner's food, tap the tip of its nose. The tip of the nose is a very sensitive part of the cat. When a person taps the tip of the cat's nose, the cat will feel uncomfortable, but without causing substantial harm to the cat. Also, Chen mentioned that when the kitten bites her, she will bite back. Such an interesting act of returning the favor to the cat does not really hurt the cat either, but they can feel the pain.

Figure.6 Yomi stepped on the master's face

Figure.7 Stealing fried rice Yomi

Finally, for training pets, owners should reward them when they do the right thing; properly discipline them when they make mistakes and guide them to do the right thing. However, pets have behavioral habits that they cannot change and need the understanding and care of their owners. In addition, even if the pet is hurt for training purposes, it is still abused.