A lady who I work with adopted a rescue dog two years ago. The dog is a cross and is 4 years old. Basically, since she’s had him, he has defecated in the house everyday. Each day in a different place / on a different surface.

She has spent a small fortune on behaviorists and all sorts of other gadgets etc, but to no avail.

Now she doesn’t work and is at home for most of the day. Now I know this woman quite well and she loves animals and I believe her when she says she has tried everything.

Anyway, 3 weeks ago her granddad came around who was disgusted when he saw the dog defecate inside, and instantly he grabbed the dogs head and rubbed it in the excrement!

He then put the dog outside and waited with it for some time until it started to wee. He then gave it a treat, made a fuss of it and let it back into her house.

Apparently, from that day, he has NEVER defecated in the house. Even though my work college was very upset with her granddads heavy handed approach there is no doubt this technique did work and according to her, the dog is much happier.

Now I was appalled when I heard this, but at the weekend I was at a party and I was speaking to numerous people who have also used this technique with a 100% success rate.

None of these people (say) they never smack there dogs and they do believe in positive training, but generally the all believe people are far too soft with their pets (treating them as people rather that as the animals that they are).

Now I don’t think I could ever do this but is this actually animal cruelty and could you have your pet taken off you by the RSPCA if they found out you did this?

I've heard of ppl doing this before i couldnt do it for gippin i wudnt expect my nose to be rubbed in my s*** so i wudnt do it to my dogs but what i have heard from ppl that do is that yes it does work

I never did, Id have been doing it every too minutes cos my puppies were like poo machines! I just used to put them outside as soon i thought they were going to do it and praise when ever they did it outside. No doubt I did raise my voice a couple of times when they did it inside (im not perfect lol) but they just ignored me anyway lol

I thought/hoped the days of all this nonsense were long over :sad: it is not a training method it can only be seen as a punishment and rather a stupid one at that, putting yourself in the mind set of an animal how can this possibly make any sense? all it can possibly do is make the animal afraid of humans and make other problems begin , such as covering up an accident by eating it!
And if someone did this to any of my animals I think I would be forced to rub their noses in it afterwards :mad:

well if its worked for them, thats good, but i could never do that to my dogs, their noses are so sensitive. Some people smack their dogs noses, that is awful, and i think it is cruel. Some say u have to be cruel to be kind. But not me.

dont think it is a very good method of training but do agree alot of people are to soft with their dogs and the dog needs to understand it is at the bottom of the pack

I wouldnt do it either- I remember my mum doing it with pups and cats when I was young and I just thought it was cruel and as hunnii says, you wouldnt do it to a child so why should it be acceptable to a pet. Regular toilet trips and praise are a much more effective means of dealing with toilet training - I want my pets to like me, not associate me with cruel and wholly negative punishment

Plus not only would you have to clean the poo off the floor but off your dogs face aswell! After all sloppy kisses are one of the best things of having a dog! :)

Molly is so clean and careful to ask politely to go outside (and was so mortified when she had diarrhoea and couldn't hold herself all night- hid and cried for hours) that I don't think I could ever bear to do that to her.

I too thought this method went out with the dark ages, To me its like telling your dog that its wrong to poo at all and surely it would be scared to do it even outside for fear of someone rubbing their nose in it.
My pup is great with the training pads and ill stick with that and gradually put them nearer the door, until all her injections have finished and then she can go for walks.

Apart from anything else, it's just humiliating. Besides, my dogs have white fur so it really isn't an option :p

It is cruel, in most cases it doesn't work...

In my opinion there is no point in punishing a dog if you've not taught him the correct behaviour in the first place - and if you have, then there's very little need for punishment.

Dogs repeat behaviours they find rewarding. They are rather simple animals - they learn what is safe and what's not.

All the dog's learnt is that it's dangerous to go in the house when the owners there - if she's very lucky he'll have generalised it to being in the house, but most dogs will just learn to defecate when there's nobody around.
It's much more sensibly to teach a dog that it's rewarding to defecate outside in the owner's presence.