shock:

avoiding using unnecessary physical control with your animals to train them fosters a desire to work with you and a bond of trust. instead of belly-rolling or scruffing or hitting or spraying your kitten/puppy for nipping you during play, you just have to stand up and leave. 

animals will very quickly understand that ‘oh, when i do this thing it causes all the fun things to stop.’ however, if you immediately resort to physical control in all circumstances, you’re teaching them that your relationship is based on fear and control and they’ll do things for you based on FEAR and not understanding.

they don’t understand why something is bad if you beat them for it, or shove their faces in something, if you don’t give them an alternative and acceptable behavior 

my dog doesn’t bite me when we play because i taught her that she needs to respect that other people (and dogs and other animals) have limits and she is ALSO allowed to express her limits and will have them respected which also means that she will give plenty of warning before resorting to physical force herself (ie, she will growl and back away and other things and express very clearly she doesn’t want something instead of immediately biting and snapping unprovoked). 

she knows what she’s allowed to play with because i made it that way and because she realized if she destroys her things she doesn’t get them back, and if she doesn’t destroy my things she gets to play and gets more fun and is praised and encouraged for doing things that are appropriate and she’s learned to value her things and to understand in dog-capacity that my things also have value to me, and that we can trade. she’ll try to offer her things for mine. if i have a toy of hers, 90% of the time she’ll run and grab one of her equally-valuable toys or one of my socks to trade. 

it’s respect, both for boundaries and for the intelligence of your animals. not everything has to resort to physical control.