It is truly a vicious person who does not kick a puppy.
Puppies on their own, will not develop the ability to deal with being kicked. If you do not kick a puppy, it will come to believe that people are trustworthy. As a result, it will not be vicious enough to defend your home when you are not present. After all, a dog is required to provide labor to justify the feeding and care that you put into it.
(More explanation on the flip)
Failure to kick a dog creates a dog with an entitlement mentality. It will come to believe that it will be fed regularly, which of course is wrong. It will believe that a warm house is something it deserves. In the state of nature, dogs do not have these things, and they do just fine for themselves. Look at the Dingos of Australia. There is an animal that does not require human aid to succeed, and does quite well by itself.
In addition to kicking a dog, you should starve it as well. A hungry dog is a dog that is always looking out for its next meal. This is a good thing. This is a go getter of an animal. This is an animal that will not waste the resources given to it. If you give this dog a meal, you will truly get a return on your investment. In addition, dogs that are poorly fed leave fewer droppings in your backyard, which will reduce the amount of labor your minor indentured servants will be required to provide in order to clean it. (The archaic terms "Child" or "Children" do not represent the legal and economic realities of our times.)
Of course, an animal like this will ensure that others will also need to match your standards of dog care. This is not a bad thing. When everyone has a starving vicious animal, we will truly be a safe society, because no one will chance offending others. Remember that an attack animal wielding society is a polite society. In addition, the reduced costs across the board will result in more investment opportunities for the dog owners, ensuring that more revenue is created in the long term.
As we can see, the only moral choice is treat your animals cruelly. If you do not, you are depriving them of the chance to pull themselves up by their own proverbial Bootstraps. In order to remain competitive, we must give animals that opportunity.