I imagine that most people get angry at our dogs sometimes, or upset over something they have done. I get annoyed at LarryDog when he barks and barks at the dog next door, or a bit upset when Lola destroys another plant from our garden. (We stopped growing carrots after she dug up and ate the whole crop, but that’s another story.)

When you are angry or upset, you should take a time out for yourself from the dog, whether you are training at the moment or not, till you can collect yourself. This needn’t be a physical time out – I often find that just turning away from my dog for a moment while I take a deep breath or two is sufficient. Try this sometime yourself. Read the rest of this entry

Dogs love fun. Who can doubt it, watching a group of dogs running joyously across a field or dog park?  Today’s dog training tip is simple: play with your dogs.

There is a movement afoot to encourage us to play with our dogs. New books and DVDs are coming out, and training experts are suggesting that we lighten up and play. Great advice for most humans, I’d say, and most dogs could have told us that in the first place. In this tip, I’m talking about human-dog play, but dog-dog play is also valuable for our canine friends.

So how can you use play in training? Here are two ways: Read the rest of this entry

This series of weekly dog training tips  will include puppy training tips. That’s the case today, because bite inhibition is best taught very early on. In fact, the process begins with the puppy’s littermates. As they play, they naturally “mouth” each other — that is, they use their mouths to nip at each other. Their little teeth are plenty sharp, so it hurts, but their jaws are relatively weak at first so mouthing doesn’t do that much damage.

When one puppy does hurt another one, often the hurt one will stop playing for a while and move away. By this happening repeatedly as the litter grows up, puppies learn bite inhibition, that if they pretend to bite but use less force, the games continue. So the puppies begin to develop what’s called a soft mouth. This is one of several reasons that it’s important for puppies to stay with their mothers and littermates for a couple of months or so after birth.

The puppies’ mother or other adult dogs in the household will also correct the mouthing. If a puppy bites them, they may growl, curl their lips at the puppy, or get up and walk away.

Your Role in Training Bite Inhibition

If you get a puppy of whatever age, one of the first things for you to do — and it will naturally happen in the first day, most likely — is to determine just how far along your pup is in learning bite inhibition. At this stage, you are not looking for NO mouthing or biting. It’s actually much better for their training process if they will learn to develop a gentle bite. This is because if your dog should bite later on in life, the bite will do far less damage if the mouthing process has been allowed to develop into that ability to bite gently.

Of course, all this takes time and you will be enduring some sharp nips in the process.

Puppies often mouth when they are excited, or when they first wake up to an exciting new day. At those times, or at any time that your puppy mouths, here is what you or your children can do. Kids are more likely to be mouthed than adults because they are more lively than we are.

Say “ouch!” or yelp like another puppy would. Or say NO in a stern voice. Then stand up if you aren’t standing, and turn away from the puppy. Put your arms around your chest, to be less interesting to the pup. Stay like that, silently ignoring your puppy for around half a minute. Then resume interacting in a gentle manner.

Ian Dunbar has a wonderful DVD on training puppies which explains this in a lot more detail. Bite inhibition is actually one the very most important things you need to teach your puppy, and he explains why. See my review of Sirius Puppy Training here. One of the things I’m happiest about regarding this website is that hundreds and hundreds of people have bought this program and presumably gotten their puppies off to a better start in life. But with or without that DVD, keep at the bite inhibition process and within weeks you will see progress.

The last two articles in my dog training tips have covered how to teach your dog or puppy to sit. This is one of the most commonly taught commands or cues. Now here are some ways that you can use the sit in daily life. If you have some favorite ways that I haven’t mentioned, please post a comment below the article.

Seven Ways to Use the Sit with Your Puppy or Dog

1. If your dog tries to charge into or out of the house, you can teach him to sit until you tell him it’s okay to go.
2. Ditto for getting in or out of vehicles.
3. Our dogs sit and stay before going to their bowls to eat. This is convenient, and I must say we’ve impressed a lot of dinner guests with this trick!
4. Another good time to use the sit is when you think your dog might jump up, like when those dinner guests ring the doorbell and there’s excitement as they enter.
5. It is useful in connection with teaching a dog to come to you and to sit in front of you.
6. It could save your dog from injury, or even save its life, if the dog was about to go out on a street with traffic and you called out, “Sit!”
7. It can make your dog less intimidating to a child who is about to pet your dog, with your permission of course.

A nice benefit of the sit is that dogs generally watch you closely when they are sitting, so you have their attention. Being able to get your dog’s attention when you want it makes life much more pleasant. Teaching your dog to sit also can strengthen the bond between you and the dog, as it’s something you two are doing together. You may think of it as a command, but the dog may think of it as something fun that he is doing with you. And here’s another tip: the more fun you bring to the sit or to any dog training, the more happily your dog will pay attention to you! That’s win-win.