Hi - I've posted before but in a nutshell, DH brought home a staffy puppy a few months ago against my wishes. At the time I didn't like or know much about dogs but since she's arrived I've done a complete 360. I love her to bits but I'm very uneducated when it comes to dogs and having to do a lot of research fast! So please don't flame me if this is a really dense question that I'm about to ask - I just genuinely want to do the best for my dog.
Anyway, last time I posted asking for advice, a couple of people suggested joining Facebook groups about training. I've joined a few and found them really helpful in general but yesterday I was lurking on one and I saw a discussion about a dog in the news who had attacked and killed a young girl. One of the people commented that to help prevent this they train their dog to bite on command (and therefore release on command). I've never heard of anyone doing this before but when I scrolled down lots of other people were saying the same thing - effectively if you own a bull breed dog you should train it to bite on command and then train it to release on command as if it does attack, it would then let go as a conditioned response. The general consensus was that this was the responsible thing to do.
Now I've never heard of this before and wouldn't really know how to go about teaching this. But (and I don't know if this is just me being too soft) my puppy is such a sweetheart with a gorgeous nature. Training her to bite would just feel so counter-intuitive. DH regularly tells me that I'm too soft with the dog but I do want to be a responsible owner too so please tell me do any of you train your dogs to bite and is this something that I should be doing??
Disclaimer - I have been teaching her the 'drop it' command but just when we're playing fetch
If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.
The doghouse
A question about bull breeds and biting
muddymary · 09/09/2014 18:17
I'd steer very wide of any group on FB purporting to be breeding Pitbulls in the UK - they are a banned breed/type. To be clear, I don't agree with Breed Specific Legislation but anyone who sets out to breed/train for biting a dog that they know is illegal is probably only doing it for very dodgy purposes.
Staffies are utterly wonderful and enchanting little dogs and I'd agree with the suggestion upthread that you take pup to training classes - something like Kennel Club Good Citizen Awards will be great fun for you both, and ensure she has great manners and is well trained. I've seen Staffies get their Gold Awards and at a recent Rally (a type of obedience competition) event, there was a gorgeous Staffy competing and doing very well. When you're looking for a class, look for one that uses positive training methods e.g. clicker training/reward based training - not only is it much kinder, but it's also very effective and an awful lot of fun.
Good luck. 
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Go on, go to a class :) my dog is over 2 and we still go (she still hasn't got bronze 
)
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.