All a Matter of Perspective

I saw a man beat his dog outside my house the other day. He picked up his dog, slammed her back onto the ground, then with an open hand hit the dog in the face a couple of times and threw her into his van. 

I called the police, they found the guy and talked to him. They also took his dog to the vet to get it checked out. The vet found nothing wrong with the dog and said they were happy to let the dog go back to its owner. Because there was nothing wrong with the dog, they just gave the man a warning.

So we have a couple of different perspectives. The vet sees nothing wrong with the dog.

The owner of the dog probably knew how he could beat the dog without causing injury.

To me it looked like a very brutal act which shouldn't happen.

To another it was discipline without mid-long term harm

To another nothing happened.