I actually just had my sister tell me to shut up because it's 'my dog'. So yes, I agree that it is much easier to teach dogs than people
The way I taught him not to mouth me, is that whenever he would do it, I would say 'hey', ignore him if he whined or howled and reward as soon as he calmed down. If he did it again, I would hold him by the collar(no pulling or choking, just holding) and making him sit or lie down and let him calm down, then reward and go back to our playing or whatever we were doing at the time. Within a couple of weeks, he stopped mouthing me.
With my family....well, I told them to do the same. It started out with soft mouthing, to which they would say 'It doesn't bother me,' which resulted in many many lectures from me, so eventually the mouthing got worse since they allowed him to do it anyway, so they did what I asked maybe once or twice, then decided that it didn't work, and started getting frustrated, so they stopped doing it. I kept telling them to do it, but the responses were, "But it doesn't work!" or "I'm not going to ignore if he
bites me!(like I said, I ignored his whines, not his biting! another thing they don't seem to understand no matter how many times I repeat)"
So in that case I decided to try other things, I thought that maybe if I asked them to do something else then they'd get it and it would work, but no... Time out is not even an option anymore, because for the first few seconds he scratched the door and howled to let him out, which they did(! showing him that scratching and howling does indeed help him get the attention !) because the noise gave them headaches or they just didn't like the howling.
Another thing that I worked super hard on with him that worked perfectly but stopped being so perfect recently was commanding once only, I would say "sit" and he would sit, I would say "stay" and he would stay, but they started yelling at him uncontrollably whenever he got close to them or even touched them with his nose, and whenever I see or hear that he is mouthing them all I can hear is "Bobbi! Stop! Stay! Sit! Stay, wait, no-- sit! Go lie down, Bobbi down, sit" all one after the other. So it went from me saying "sit" and him sitting to me saying "sit", and if he didn't sit, me tapping his rear to reinforce the one-time commanding. So that's another reason why he doesn't listen to them, because it's always a chain of commands one after the other sometimes not even giving him the time to do the first one.
And of course there's the fact that they reinforce the bad behavior on him.....Once he starts mouthing, it's yelling, ouches, chains of random commands, and then they grab him by the cheeks, look him straight in the eye and go, all playfully, in a motherly-type voice: "don't do it again, or else i'll bite you back, don't do it again, okay? okay? good dog, don't do it again, OUCH BOBBI SIT, STAY. stay, don't do it again, *dog is still mouthing* good boy!"
This is my sister and my mom's boyfriend's attitudes to this, my mom doesn't agree with my training methods altogether, she believes I should let the dog mouth because he is playing, and that he should be allowed to play if he wants to. Thing is I want to volunteer to therapy work with this dog as soon as I turn 18, and I don't want to let him go to kids and playfully mouth the kid and the kid, workers or mother getting scared or injured. /:
There's a looot of ranting here.....as you can see I am very passionate about keeping my pooch safe toward others. Especially since he is a Husky and here many people are scared of them. I don't want a scenario where a stranger that passes us on our walk tenses up because they're scared of huskies, and Bobbi senses it and jumps at them with mouthing. He doesn't do it, but this can shape itself into anything.
As for situations, he does it when he wants attention or when he gets excited. For example when I get back home, we welcome each other and he jumps and gives me kisses and is very happy and gentle with me, but as soon as he comes up to any of them, he grabs their arm.