is this fr the core of this entire shitflinging argument?

Isn't it wild how fast misunderstandings can be resolved when you have the guts to actually put forward a view instead of treating everything like a debate? The moment you clarified that you aren't trying to defend horse riding it became much easier to step back and determine where the disconnect came from. The entire time, my position has been crystal clear: riding horses is animal abuse, animal abuse is bad, training a dog to shit outside is not animal abuse and is not bad.

You made an argument that I interpreted to be in defense of horseback riding, and I stated that interpretation clearly and immediately. Why exactly did it take you so long to clarify that that was not the intention of your argument? What reason, if you were interested in good faith discussion, could you have had for knowingly allowing the other party to discuss under the assumption that the argument you were making was a completely different one from the one you were actually making?

dogs that aren't housebroken are outside dogs. that's their 'natural' (deeply anthropogenic ofc) state.

Here I have to disagree. We invented dogs. Their natural state is to live with us. I see a dog living outside or in the 'wild' as the 'unnatural' state for a dog. They evolved not, like their wolf ancestors, to live in the wilderness, but to live with us protected by our tools and our shelters. Because we bred them that way.

Anyway, that's just a digression. The point is which way is more ethical. To me it seems very obvious that if the two choices are don't bother to teach the dog to choose where it shits and force it to stay outside or do teach it to choose where it shits and allow it to benefit from the shelter of a human domicile, the latter is the more ethical choice.

not dogs who live inside but shit everywhere. i can see how that would seem unreasonable, but that read legitimately did not occur to me at all.

We must have quite different life experiences, because I have met plenty of dogs kept inside and not taught to appropriately handle their waste.

I have also met plenty of neglected dogs kept outside, but I've never before thought there was a particular link between that and training them to poop in the right places.

Now, I'd like to circle back around to the actual original point. Training a horse to stop fighting when you abuse it: necessarily abusive and done only in the service of more abuse. Training a dog to poop outside: not necessarily abusive and done in the service of affording the dog a more comfortable, safer, healthier, happier life inside shelter.

Where is the connection?