Useful behaviors to train: Bite-inhibition

Bite inhibition: 

Expect puppies under four months of age to bite and mouth.  Like human babies, this is how they learn about their world, and it is how they play with their litter-mates.  This behavior may intensify after four months when they are teething.  This is another good reason to supervise your puppy around the children!  Work on bite inhibition with your puppy yourself, and teach your children how to do it.  You must gradually teach the young puppy to restrain his bite, and you must impress upon him that human skin is very tender. 

Since biting is a natural dog behavior, and a young puppy is still learning to control his jaw strength, you must do this patiently and over the course of time in order to be humane.  At first, focus your efforts on the puppy’s harder and less tolerable bites.  Say, “Ouch!” in a low, growly voice (it needn’t be loud; it’s the tone that’s important) and move away, ignoring the puppy for at least ten seconds.  The puppy should understand from your reaction that he was too rough, since puppies will briefly ignore a litter-mate and refuse to play if treated too roughly.  After this time-out you can resume play.  Encourage the puppy to mouth and chew appropriate toys, instead.  As the puppy grows, you can gradually become pickier and pickier about how much pressure you will tolerate from his teeth, until you reach the point where Fido won’t touch your skin with his teeth at all.  If you got Fido at eight weeks of age and have had time to work with him, you can expect this type of bite-inhibition by six months of age.  Remember to give him objects to teethe on besides your flesh, provide puppy play-dates with other dogs, and teach him some games to interact with you more appropriately, and he may reach this point of self-control even earlier!

Teaching dogs that human skin is fragile is useful. I once hurt my dog Terra by accident when I was removing a harness from his leg. It must have hurt badly, because he bit me, but not hard enough to break the skin. I told him what a good dog he was for just giving me the warning. He could have done damage if he had wanted to. He had great bite inhibition, and so he knew how to get my attention without breaking the skin. Luckily, he remembered that human skin is much more fragile than a dog's.