Anger towards pets!!

Hey!

It's a scandal and I feel awfully ashamed about this and I write this down because I want to know if anyone knows if there is a special kind of literature or DOY therapy for the following..

First, I am a vegetarian. Not because I care about the greenhouse-effect and cutting forests down to grow food for cattle.
I mean, I do of course, but I am a vegetarian because I think it is absolutely disgusting to hurt animals that way. Grow and feed this in fabrics and kill them. Keep them impregnated to drink their milk and put their resulting offspring in small cages where they cannot move so they become fat enough to lead them to slaughter after 6 months, which is the only time where they meet their siblings again.. when they are all going to the slaugherhouse! Butchers who make a living off of killing pigs and who are so used to their job that they torture and bully them out of boredom. God it's indescribably repulsive how I feel about hat. Ever since I became a vegetarian, whenever I do eat food from animals, I am now very aware of what I am doing and I thank the poor animal in question for giving up his life for my lust.

But.. I never treated animals badly before. Well, apart from torturing insects when I was little.
I am not agressive, not towards humans, and I don't like fighting even though I am as frustrated as many others.
Now, the first time this anger towards pets occured was a couple of years ago with my cousin's cat.
She was shy and didn't know me so she wouldn't let me near her. My cousin asked me to take care of her when she was away for work and I kinda bullied the cat, because (not obviously) she irritated me by being shy.

It happened once or twice with my sister's elderly cat as well. But we were buddies so I totally forgot about it.

Now... and this brings tears to my eyes, I have been friends with my girlfriends dog for two years now. The fella like me very much. But nevertheless, about a month ago, I became quite ugly towards him (of course when my girlfriend wasn't there). He is not impressed that soon and he's a very independent kinda dog, he grew up in bars and was used to letting himself out when he was little. She taught him a lot of manners, my girlfriend, and even though he now lives with her parents and has gotten very fixated with food, when you give him attention by rules, you can see that he knows very well what he should and should not be doing.

I like to cuddle pets, and he likes to be cuddled as well. But there were a couple of moments where I was in sort of a pissed mood and got it out on him. I don't know if I hit him, but I got rough, pushing him around physically, reacting ridiculous when totally unnecessary. I felt anger at the moment and took it out on him. I feel sorry afterwards, but even when I remind myself when I am in this abuse mood, I sometimes just don't care and take it out nonetheless. I am also getting uglier. I locked him up in the toilet just to **** with him. Again he didn't seem very impressed, but that's because he is used to drunk people and must have seen sh** like this before (not with my girlfriend I mean, but with people doing strange things when they get angry) so it must be very confusing for him that most of the time we are best friends and that I sometimes get angry out of nowhere and put it on him! He's small and he's a dog and I as a human know that it's terrible to do this. Take someone of your own size.

Now.. during the past weeks a friend of mine sometimes brings his beautiful year and a half old dog to stay with us so that he can work quietly all night when his son isn't staying at his place.
This dog is still young and energetic and loves to cuddle and play a lot. There is no reason in the world to take my anger out on her. She is not shy, she is not unimpressed. She is a gorgeous young dog and she still has stuff to learn.
But I have been abuse towards her today and about two weeks ago!
I even hit her on the nose a couple of times and I locked her outside.

It just doesn't make any sense! Why am I such a coward and why can I not keep my cowardness to myself??
I feel so bad after doing it. There was a moment last week where I started moving angrily or raising my voice and she quickly flew on her back to move me into petting her instead of hitting!! She knows! And still I got ugly to her today!

They don't deserve this especially not because I spend a lot of attention and time to play with them and visit the pet store to find new stuff and talk to the store-owners and other people with dogs. Not to mention that people trust me to take care of their pets when they're not able to (of course I haven't pointed out that these cases listed are different from the many many pets that I babysit occasionally for people to whom I am not being so mean). And I love these animals! They are not mistaken that I am their friend... SO WHY AM I BETRAYING THEIR CONFIDENCE!!??

HELP! PLEASE!