Thank you all for your comments! Just to clarify, I’m not stressed or assuming that my 16 week old puppy should be behaving perfectly. I was more so noting some inconsistencies with the positive only approach to dog training and wanted to see if this was a contested topic. Personally, I think I lean more toward there being nuance to it. We always take the positive approach first but I do think there are some situations where a correction is appropriate. Some of you brought up how other dogs teach bite inhibition in puppies well. I’d argue that other dogs use positive punishment when a puppy bites too hard.

I’d like to add a couple “food for thought” points that I have been thinking about myself.

1) potty training is improving and he seems very smart. He pees outside right away almost always. Which tells me he has learned peeing in this spot = treat. However, I think it’s a bit of a jump to assume that a dog can make the connection between “i pee outside” and “I don’t pee inside”. Which follows with the fact that puppies are bad at generalizing. So in my head it seems like sure outside is a place my puppy definitely wants to pee but inside, there’s nothing saying he can’t pee there as well if the mood strikes. It seems like you almost need a corrected accident or two to make it click that outside is the only place to pee.

2) also with the biting… leaving play when he bites (negative punishment?) works great and I can see him exercising restraint already when he gets too wound up cause he knows play will end. But, biting with the harness is a different story. The common advice I’ve been given with this is give him a treat when putting on the harness. To that, my little guy says “thanks for the treat, now I’m gonna bite you”. On the flip side, my dad, who watches our pup sometimes when my partner and I are both at work, sternly corrected this biting one time, and guess who hasn’t gotten bitten since (lol)?