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Controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker allegedly uses a shock collar on his dog on stream.
It is narrative shorthand for a villain - to emphasize his wickedness and complete removal from the family of man - to kick a dog for no reason other than vicious spite. While on air last night, expounding upon his hatred of America and its violence and imperialism, his dog Kaya stands up behind him. A Tibetan mastiff/guardhound mix, the streamer purchased her a long time ago as a puppy. Nowadays, she spends the majority of her waking existence sitting behind him, in camera as a prop during his streams. As soon as he sees that she's moving off the bed, he shouts at her, and reaches for something off-camera. Immediately afterwards, the dog yelps as she tries to lay back down.
It is obviously a shock collar that is being used. No amount of denial or snarky comments can get anyone to believe that their lying eyes can see any differently. And if you think that's an overstatement - I invite you to see the footage for yourself. The fact that the man still has a career after saying "America deserved 9/11" is testament to the country's tolerance for extreme left-wing radicalization, but this might very well be the thing that can take him down. Americans love their dogs: creatures of innocent, adoring love for man. The fact that Hasan uses his dog to sustain his flagging social media presence - in emotes and in donation messages - is a transparent attempt to associate his vile personality with an animal's emotional resonance.
You can tell a lot about a character of a man by his treatment of creatures who depend entirely upon his good will and care for their lives. By this metric, Hasan is a despotic and evil blackguard. One hopes that these clips are shown at tonight's congressional hearing to the Twitch CEO. At the very least, it will be entertaining to see how the man deflects for his pet demagogue. Perhaps, in a peace offering, he can offer to collar the streamer?
It's wild how many commenters seem to react to the idea of any negative feedback whatsoever to a working animal as if it was unthinkable. Dogs were bred to be conditioned to do the jobs that humans assigned them. Laying down on a comfortable bed for hours on end is very much a job that a dog can do, and that a dog can find satisfaction in when it knows it is doing its job well. A tiny stimulus from an e-collar as an occasional reminder is an incredibly normal dog training behavior, despite the efforts of radical positive-feedback-only advocates to dramatically shift the Overton window over the past two decades.
It is not a working dog, and "lay around to be a prop for a stream" isn't a job a dog is bred for, nor is it one we should be training them for, it completely absurd.
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A large part of the disconnect you are seeing is that clearly this dog is not properly trained. Its fully grown. If it knew its job was to lay there he wouldn't have a shock mechanism to keep it there. Perhaps from time to time he would have to remind the dog to get back to its position. Dogs that are well trained are very obedient.
Instead he chose a different path with physical pain that still appears to be ineffective due to his own negligent training.
“Not being a great dog trainer” is hardly grounds for vituperative opprobrium though, is it? Many people are not great dog trainers.
I personally have contempt for people that are too lazy or incompetent to train their dogs and just engage in pointless acts of cruelty directed at an animal that clearly has no idea why they're being hurt. This isn't some Piker-specific position.
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If you're not a good trainer you shouldn't use a shock collar because you're inflicting pain without the corresponding training utility.
And you could be a good dog trainer if you just googled it, so you're essentially inflicting pain on something you have a duty of care to because you are lazy or stupid, which is why everyone is mad.
I use "you" to refer to Hassan/a hypothetical dog owner, not you personally.
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Some dogs can, but this is highly dependent on the breed. I don't know enough about this breed to comment on the plausibility of it accepting such a role, but this would be cruel for any active breed with high drive. An Australian Shepherd is simply not going to understand the idea that it's tasked with sitting still, it will be frustrated by this life. Piker aside, people should put more thought into what they hope to get from animals that have had selective breeding that has engrained behavior so deeply that it borders on neuroses.
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Fair point. We just really don't like Hasan, so we need to find more reasons not to like him.
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It's wild how you seem to think negative feedback has to include physical pain. Dogs are social animals that are easily trained without pain.
Punishment is not generally as powerful a motivator as reward, but if you are training a dog to specifically not do a certain action (leaving his position) then punishment is a necessary part of that training to indicate the boundary conditions he can't break.
How else do you recommend to punish the dog? The most important part is that the negative stimulus must be temporally as close as possible to the infraction. Was yelling the correct response? What if the yelling is not getting the point across? Are you going to, what, ignore the dog so he feels bad?
Honestly I'm really interested by the large number of commentors who really think that shock collars are beyond the pale. They are a normal and often necessary part of training a dog.
At the risk of being pedantic, we were training dogs for millennia before the shock collar was invented, and also in many countries the shock collar is banned, so it cannot be necessary even if sometimes useful.
I make no comment on the morality, I think that depends on how it’s used.
I would assume that before the shock collar was invented, the go-to immediate negative reinforcement was beating the dog or yanking on the prong collar.
My aunt just used a rolled up newspaper applied to the nose for a mild negative reinforcement, equivalent to the dope slap. But dogs are social animals, they’re as motivated by disapproval as much or more than pain. “BAD DOG” in the right tone of voice is usually all you need, I think.
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Why is physically negative feedback taboo but other negative sensations are not? They are all just dolors, negative hedons, whatever you want to call them. I’m fairly confident that dogs might choose a small shock over, I don’t know, being refused access to a particular treat. In my mind if a dog would prefer it I struggle in understanding what makes it wrong other than the squeamishness and moral purity of the pet owner
In theory sure, in practice it's a reliable signal that you're abusive. Furthermore, i don't want to give abusive people the social go ahead for using that tool and plausible deniability for going over the line.
I don't have a principle against physical negative feedback, I would support corporal punishment where there is a neutral third party evaluating and administrating said punishment, like Singapore style caning.
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Ah yes, withholding a bonus to an employee is the same negative hedons as whipping him. Clearly.
Yes. I would rather be whipped a few times than deprived a $10 million dollar bonus. Hedons ARE fungible. Maybe not perfectly fungible, but if you tell me there is no amount of money that would convince you to take one stroke of the lash then… I just won’t believe you.
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Well humans have all sorts of cultural taboos around physical violence that clearly dogs have no comprehension of. In the absence of cultural taboos and laws I think for a big enough bonus many employees would prefer a short electric shock over missing out on a 50k bonus. I know I would.
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