A woman has ignited a debate on social media after revealing she threw water over her neighbor's son after he did the same thing to her cat.

Twitter user Shannon Cooper took to the social media platform to recall how she threw a basin of water over her young neighbor after he had poured a cup of water over her pet cat. What followed was a fast and furious discussion over whether or not she was right to do so.

Cooper wrote in her initial tweet: "My 10 year old neighbour just threw a cup of water over my cat who was sitting on the fence minding his own business n laughed so I threw a basin of water over him from the window and now his dad is at my door going mental but I don't see the problem, don't touch my cat."

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Shannon later clarified that her neighbor's son is actually 13 - he just "looks 10".

Some criticized Shannon's response, with one person writing: "You're going to have to be very careful. I'm in no way excusing the boy's behavior, but dumping water on him qualifies as assault.

"A better course of action might have been to tell the kid's father what he'd done. The kid's father would then be on your side."

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A second added: "Not sure about this. [...] I can understand why you did it but you're going down to their level. Better to sort of discuss it with them, having said that I would've been furious!!"

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Others were more supportive of Shannon's response, with one person tweeting: "A perfect consequence for the child’s misbehaviour. Water doesn’t hurt. He won’t do that again to an animal. Those who don’t agree, don’t @ me, I specialized in behaviour management with children for over 30 years."

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Another added: "Life lessons - there are consequences for bad behaviour."

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In a follow-up tweet, Shannon revealed that she is friends with her neighbors, and everybody involved was laughing about it the next day.

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She added that after water was thrown over her cat, the child's father was angry at her for throwing water over her son, suggesting that the boy was going to receive no retribution for harming an innocent pet.

That being said - do you think Shannon was in the right? Let us know in the comments section!

Featured image credit: Snapwire/Pexels

Woman sparks debate after throwing water on neighbor's son after he did the same to her cat