Se-Koira-Alahtaa-Johon-Kalikka-Kalahtaa
Interpretation of the saying: "Se koira älähtää johon kalikka kalahtaa"
Translated directly into English, the saying goes: "The dog yelps who gets hit by the stick."
Which seems obvious, if you hit a dog with a stick they will yelp out of pain and confusion. But what's the real meaning behind the saying?
One way to look at this is to imagine a person getting their feelings hurt. Getting hurt causes them to complain, or to perhaps raise their voice.
But more accurately, it describes the situation, where a person gets hurt (offended, challenged) without the intent for anyone to hurt them, and the victim reveals themselves as wounded, usually by "lashing out", or by getting very defensive.
In other words, a person who feels attacked will defend themselves. The attacker is not attacking the person directly, and most may not even have the intent of hurting the person, but they still do end up hurting them. The defender then reveals themselves to be hurt, also indirectly, by the things they say in defense.
This is implied by the fact that the word for stick, "kalikka", is used of small pieces of wood, like logs to burned in a fireplace. This distinction is important, because it should not be misunderstood as a long stick, which one could use as a baseball bat for hitting.
The saying does not mention that the dog is getting hit directly by anyone, i.e. the dog is not under attack, but it would seem that since the dog is getting hit by a small piece of wood, it is implied that it's an accident. For some unknown reason there's a small piece of wood flying in the air that then proceeds to hit the dog mid air, causing the dog to yelp. This yelping would then be unexpected behaviour, and the owner of the dog would be surprised to hear this.
Let's think of an example:
Imagine a situation where you're talking to someone about COVID. In the dicussion, you mention that according to the data, people who are overweight are over represented in the COVID death and serious symptom statistics, meaning that if you're overweight, you're more likely to suffer worse symptoms of COVID as well as being more likely to die with COVID. Your friend is not overweight. Perhaps they are a bit round, but by no means fat or obese. They feel insecure about their size, the way they look etc., and thus they take offense in what you just said. They take a defensive position, denying the validity of the data, saying something like; "but how can it have any impact if you are overweight?", "that sounds silly, it can't be like this", "yeah it could be anything" etc.. They are the dog who got hit by the stick.
In this light, the hurt person feels guilty, and they are not willing to accept their sin, but would rather deny it, falling into the devil's triad.