Tag Archives: bite inhibition

04/3/12

The Importance of Bite Inhibition

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

Imagine you are at the dentist and he slips with his little scratchy-hook tool, and stabs your gum a little bit.  You respond by biting down on the dentist’s finger and punching him in the face.

Or you’re asleep in your bed and you partner wakes you as she hops in.  This terrifies you, so you grab your gun from under the mattress, and shoot her.

 

Red Dobermann puppy chewing person's foot.

Puppies need to be guided to learn to not use the full force of their bite as an adult dog. Photo © Ruthless Photos.

Ian Dunbar used similar human-aggressive examples in his seminar to make a point: Dog-human aggression is never okay.  Just like humans don’t (shouldn’t) hurt people that accidentally hurt them, and don’t hurt people that scare them, dogs shouldn’t hurt people in response to pain or fear.

There are simply no excuses for a dog to be human aggressive – it is never appropriate and never acceptable, regardless of the context.

First, appropriate socialisation should aim to build a confident puppy that is never fearful enough to bite as an adult dog.  Second, a puppy should be taught how to inhibit (i.e. make less forceful) their bite so that, if for some reason they are motivated to bite in their life, the bite is less severe.

Dunbar didn’t go into much detail about teaching bite inhibition at the seminar, but basically the process involves teaching the puppy to bite less forcefully and then teaching the puppy to bite less frequently (and eventually learn that they are not allowed to put their teeth on people).  Alongside this, you add a cue that means ‘let go’.  (It seems that the Dunbar seminar Crystal, at Reactive Champion, attended did talk about teaching bite inhibition in more detail.)

Furthermore, puppies that attend the Dunbar-style puppy classes, with offleash play, mean that they learn how to appropriately control their bite when interacting with other dogs.

The plan is that, after teaching bite inhibition to a puppy, the adult dog will be more likely to bite in an inhibited way.  That is, the depth and seriousness of the bite will be less severe.  A puppy that is well socialised, but does not have bite inhibition, makes for a dangerous dog.

 

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03/15/12

Puppy Classes (Dunbar)

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See index.

Dunbar-style puppy classes aim to teach puppies bite inhibition, allow one (of many) venues for human socialisation, and teach owners to control their dog off leash.  They should be conducted offleash, inside on hard (sanitisable) floors, and with big and little dogs in the one class.

 

Dobermann puppies playing together offleash

These dobermanns are playing offleash – an important learning experience for them and their owners.

Bite inhibition

By puppies playing with one another, they are learning rules for dog-dog interactions and also the appropriate force of bite while playing.

 

Socialisation

Puppy classes only form part of the socialisation picture.  While socialisation happens in puppy classes, it is too little too late.  There is a lot of work the owner needs to do before puppy class, and puppy class won’t make up for undersocialisation.

 

Control Offleash

Often the lead can become a ‘crutch’ for dog owners, and they cannot get the behaviours they want without this level of control. By training off leash from the outset, the puppy and owner learns to work with distractions and use them to their advantage. Our control needs to be independent of a collar and lead.

 

Dunbar is often credited as the father of puppy classes, but he has become concerned about how puppy classes are currently run.  Particularly, most puppy classes are on lead, and most puppy classes use too much food and never phase the lure.  To Dunbar, 10 minutes of offleash play is simply not good enough for a puppy class.  Puppies need to learn to remove themselves from play, and humans need to learn how to engage in dog play and make dog-dog play a valuable reinforcer.

Of course, we use food to train puppies, but the food should be faded immediately.  Furthermore, off leash behaviour will allow an experience trainer to note puppies with problems and start to address them sooner-rather-than-later.

Dunbar stressed that puppy classes are only part of the socialisation picture. The next post will talk about what puppy buyers should be doing immediately on bringing a puppy home.