Here is a letter I am planning to send to a competent newspaper Agony Aunt, if I can find one.

I am asking for your advice.

I believe that the heart of both moral and practical wellbeing lies in defining a close, evident link between good behaviour and good outcomes, and bad behaviour and bad outcomes. This surely defines Civilisation – a steady trend towards good, cooperative, generous behaviour having positive benefits for all.

Hence I am extending this principle to our dog, a frisky and wily year-old collie. She is wonderfully but excessively friendly, jumping up at visitors and covering them with mud.

To curb this unseemly exuberance I have started to squirt her with water when she jumps up. It sometimes occurs that said guests get hit by a squirt of water as collateral damage in the confusion. But at least water evaporates, whereas mud does not.

This policy is working. The dog now jumps up less and less when visitors appear, and slinks away to hide under the table when the squirter is produced.

A clear link between negative behaviour and a negative outcome has been created, shaping much more gracious behaviour.

She gets a treat. Everyone is better off. Civilisation edges Upwards.

The problem comes when I try to apply the same principle to my teenage son, on the alas frequent occasions when he too does not respect basic norms of good manners and reasonable behaviour.

I have taken to using the same water squirter on him, immediately after some or other obnoxious remark or defiant gesture, so that the link between poor behaviour and a bad result is lodged promptly in his mind.

Yet whereas the dog appears to be smart enough to grasp this fairly simple principle, my son does not.

If anything a squirt of water on his ear area increases rather than decreases his tendency to yap and snarl and behave aggressively/irrationally.

I have always understood the whole point of evolution as being a propensity among scraps of DNA to flourish when they (inadvertently) opt for the (for them) better option.

So if microspcopic amoeba-like live phenomena can respond in a predictable life-enhancing way to positive and negative stimuli – as can my dog – why can not my teenage son?

Is he a form of life so impenetrably stupid and insensate that in effect Evolution in itself and of Civilisation more generally grinds to a halt in his case?

And how can this be given the outstanding DNA he inherited, at least from my side of the family?

All this is most disturbing. Your insight and suggestions will be much appreciated.

Thank you in advance,

UPDATE:  a radical vulpine version of the same approach is not working either!