Don’t Turn Away: Addressing Some Big Issues - a podcast by Ty Brown

In this post, I’m going to be talking specifically about jumping and biting. I’ve spoken about this a few days ago in another post, but I want to address it head-on here.


I just got off the phone with a gentleman who told me: “I’ve got this young dog, and every time the previous owner would give him a toy every time he tried to bite.” This dog is five months old, and now all he does is bite his owner—because he wants to play!


This is a method that is being taught by positive trainers, who usually advocate ignoring bad behavior by trying to get the dog to do something else. Not surprisingly, this method often fails. I often see this among people who say things like: “We’ve been working with a trainer for about six months, but our dog is still jumping, so we’re kind of looking around for different training options.” My response is always to tell people that getting a dog to stop jumping should take six minutes, not six months! Later, I find out that their trainer told them to turn their back every time the dog jumps.


The idea behind both of these methods is that if you ignore your dog’s bad behavior, then it’s no longer fun because he isn’t getting any attention. If your dog bites you and you say “Ouch” to let the dog know that it was painful, that your dog won’t want to hurt you. To me, that’s the biggest joke in dog training. Every puppy wants to wrestle with and “hurt” its owner! It’s fun!

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