Bite inhibition is your dog’s ability to control the force of their mouth/bite. This is sometimes referred to as “soft mouth”, while those terms are slightly different generally.

Bite inhibition is best learned by doing proper training when your pup bites. 

But the most effective way to teach bite inhibition is by having your puppy play with other dogs. Dogs have a natural way of letting other dogs know when bites are too hard and painful.

Don’t skip out on puppy play dates!  This is where we went wrong with Jake And Maggie.  They were sick when we got them due to a poor breeding.  Yes, we saved them from a very bad situation.  So having them around other animals was not safe.  We also spent too much time training them with just the four of us and not taking them around other puppies their age.  We learned our lesson and quickly made the necessary changes in our training to help acclimate them to new environments.

TERM #5- CAPTURING

Capturing is simply a technique of ‘marking’ a behavior your dog naturally does.

For example, if you’re trying to teach your dog to lie down you might wait for them to lie down on their own and then ‘mark’ and reward that behavior. After doing that a few times, you can start adding a cue word (lie down) so your dog pairs the behavior with a term.

Capturing is a very effective way to turn natural behaviors into behaviors you can ask for on cue!

TERM #6- JACKPOTTING

A big part of dog training is keeping your dog guessing and WANTING to listen to you. And jackpotting makes that happen!

Jackpotting is simply giving your dog a better reward (think real steak vs normal treats) or giving your dog more of their normal reward.

For example, instead of just giving one or two treats like you normally would you could give 4-5 treats when your dog does something you really want from them.

Jackpotting is a great way to more strongly reinforce behaviors!

TERM #7- INTERMITTENT REINFORCEMENT

Similar to the above, keeping your dog guessing can be a very valuable tool when training!

Intermittent reinforcement is simply giving your dog rewards at a random interval.

So, instead of giving a treat every time your dog does a trick, you only give a reward/treat every 2 or 3 times. Of course, at the beginning of teaching a new behavior, you’ll want to reward each time.

But as your dog progresses with that behavior, you can start to randomize the reward interval to help keep your pup guessing and wanting to listen!