[Ashley V]

I don't know why you are comparing a dog and a child - you spank a child, you can explain to them the reasons behind it (ex. you are getting spanked because ______). Humans can communicate verbally. We don't have that connection with a dog and their thinking is totally different too. All that dog knows is that there is this large creature coming at me and hitting me with something that hurts. They learn to fear you and in turn can become either scared or aggressive. They do not associate "Oh I peed on the floor, owner is mad, I get spanked. Hmm... maybe I shouldn't do that again." Dogs can be trained without hitting. They can be trained with consistency and patience. When training my oldest yorkie, we used a crate. The moment he'd come out of his crate, we'd take him to his pee pad and he was not allowed to leave it until he peed. Shortly after he ate and drank anything, same thing. When we were relaxing around the house we watched him 100% of the time and learned his signals that he needed to pee. When we'd see the signals, he was taken to his pee pad. If we caught him trying to pee else where a loud (non yelling), firm "AH AH!" or "NO!" would stop him and we'd take him to his pee pad. If we could not watch him or were not at the house, he was in his crate. He was trained in about 2 weeks and now will pee on a pad or outside. Not once did we yell or hit him, but we gave a ton of praise and gave him a treat for doing what he needed to do. I feel sorry for any dog that "needs" to be hit in order to be trained because when that dog turns around and bites the owner or someone else, guess who gets blamed and usually PTS - the dog. Why? Because it was "aggressive". Why is the dog "aggressive"? Because it is afraid because it was hit. Start using consistency and positive reinforcement and you will start to see a different side of your dog, believe me. She is still very young and the damage can be reversed, but she'll need to learn to trust you before, so you'll have to be patient. I own a dog that was obviously hit and abused and only after 6 months of him dealing with that, it's taken me 4 years to reverse the damage done to him and while he's come a long way, I still see the effects of what it's done to him. Do Sparta a favor and stop hitting her.