Jumpy Puppy?

[MariaM]

Major sometimes jumps on our visitors and I was wondering how I could stop him from doing that? He really likes to lick little kids but he doesn't realize he is scaring them. And if I walk out with food he'll jump up. (Or if somebody is bringing in the groceries). Any suggestions?

[sammy101]

kodie has the same problem!! he loves kids,and loves to lick them,jump on them etc.but he scares them when he tries to jump! i Tell him no and he still does it.When visitors come over i have kodie on a leash so he doesnt jump or run up to them.he does it to people when we stop and talk to people on the walkway,and im using his choke chain,which it stops him from jumping,but i dont want to use it too much,i honestly(spl?) dont know what the correct thing to do for that problem.

[heinz57_79]

Getting dogs (especially big dogs) to not jump can be tricky. there's a few ways to go about curbing the behaviour. First of all, if he jumps you don't want to give him any attention. Not a
No, nothing. Ignore him completely. I know this can be hard, and if you have to, walk around the house in sweats for a while. :) When he settles and sits, THEN give him all the attention he wants. He'll start to understand that when he jumps, he gets nothing. If he sits, he gets luvins! That tends to work pretty good.

I'm working with Arthur and Anna right now. They're usually pretty good, but they forget themselves sometimes.

There's another method which helps too, but people are afraid of hurting their dogs. When they jump, put your knee up. They run into the knee kinda like a road block. It doesn't hurt them, and they dont like it. But those are for some of those "slow learners". I had to use that method with Charlie. He'd got o jump, and jump right into my knee. He'd shake it off, try it again and get the same result. Eventually he got tired of bumping his nose, so he quit jumping. :)

[MariaM]

We've been doing the ignoring thing ever since we got him (3 months ago) and he still jumps. I think I might try the knee thing, I have heard of it, but I just wanted to know if anyone had some "tried, tested, and true" methods. Thanks.

[Toller 42]

tango does the same thing and we've tried the ignore thing and bumping her with our knee, she get's soooooooo excited and hyper she just doesn't care, have any suggestions?

[Aspen and Misty]

What I do is when Connor jumps up I step into him. I then become something he doesn't want. Also, make it VERY tempting to jump up, I hold my hands above my head and say in a high pitchy voice " O good boy! What a good boy!!" (Don't say his name!!). Then I wait untill he sits,. because eventually he will!! And I pet him. If he stands up out of the sit I stand up and put my hands behind my back and stare at the floor right in front of my feet. He eventully will sit again and I will praise him untill he stands up then I stop and put my hands behind my back and stare at the floor in front of my feet again. I continue this for awile. I also do it for days. Eventually they will learn to sit no matter what situation they are in.

This has worked for all 3 of my dogs

Ashley

[MariaM]

So I step into him, AND make him want to jump at the same time? And I want to make him want to jump, saying Good Boy, WHILE he's jumping? Sorry, I'm just a little confused. What about if Major lies down? Do I ignore him till he sits?

[Toller 42]

I've tried everything all of you have mentioned and none of it works! the ignore thing worked on my other dogs though! anything else that might help?

[tikeyas_mom]

Baby used to be like that too. but noone wants a 100lb puppy jumping on them when ever they come over to visit. so whenever she goes to jump up, I'll stick my knee out so that it bumps her chest. She hates the feeling. then I say "NO Jumping" in a stern voice, and then look away and ignore her for like 2 min. Then I tell her to "sit pretty" and when she does it I give her ALOT of praise and a treat. that was she knows that Jumping on ppl is bad and sitting pretty is good. :)

[Aspen and Misty]

Originally posted by MariaM
So I step into him, AND make him want to jump at the same time? And I want to make him want to jump, saying Good Boy, WHILE he's jumping? Sorry, I'm just a little confused. What about if Major lies down? Do I ignore him till he sits?

here this is what I do....

I stand up and go to walk across the room

Breeze Follows

I look at her wave my arms above my head and say "good Girl!!" in my exited voice.

Breeze jumps up

I step into her

I then walk a few paces away from her

Turn Towards her and I wave my arms above my head and say "good Girl" in my exited voice

Breeze Jumps Up

I step into her

I stand there and look at her

She sits

I pet her

She stands up

I stop petting her and look at the floor infront of my feet

She sits

I pet her

We end our session and repeate it later.

Ashley

[aly]

You should start out with just yourself working with him and add other people to the training exercises later on as Major gets the idea. One problem with teaching dogs not to jump is that while you may not allow it, other people sometimes will. People think its pretty cute when someone else's dog jumps on them (sometimes anyway) and may give the dog attention for it. This makes your job of training the dog not to jump 10 times harder because a behavior that is randomly rewarded will increase and likely become obsessive (think Vegas slot machines .. people keep pulling and pulling the slots because they know there is a chance that they will win .... dogs jump and jump remembering that they have been rewarded in the past, so there is a chance jumping will be rewarded again if they keep trying). So be sure that no one in your family is allowing Major to jump on them. Even negative attention is attention, so be sure no one is shoving Major off and yelling at him. All emotions should be turned off and Major should be completely ignored when he jumps. Turn your back and look at the sky.

While you are training him that jumping isn't acceptable, keep in mind that he may go through an extinction burst where he jumps persistently before eventually giving up. Its sort of like if you went to a coke machine every day at lunch, put your money in, and got your coke .. but one day the coke didn't come out. You might shake and kick the machine a bit before finally giving up and realizing that you aren't getting a coke out of it.

One exercise you can do is put him on a leash and step on it so he doesn't have enough slack to jump. When he tries to jump, he'll be pulled back to the ground because you are not giving him the option of jumping. When he decides to sit down, reward him with a good treat and praise. This self-correcting method sets the dog up for success, which is the best way to train.

Also work on tying his leash (to something sturdy) and approaching him. As you walk towards him and he jumps, take a step back and turn your head. Try to approach him again a few seconds later. If he sits, treat and calm praise. Try not to get too excited or it may tempt him to jump too much. Just remember to only reward him when he's sitting or laying down. Don't give him a sit command, you want it to be his own choice. This exercise is great to do with a bunch of different people.

When you're walking him on the street and you see a person approaching, you may want to politely alert the person that you're teaching him not to jump. Ask them to step away if he does jump on them. Sometimes people will say "Oh I don't mind!", but just tell them you really want your dog to be polite around children and not jump. You may have to be proactive when you see people coming and give him the sit command. If a dog is sitting, he can't be jumping afterall! This is different from the previous exercise where you don't want to give the command.

I would never try to encourage him to jump and then reprimand him for it. That could get pretty confusing to him. Setting him up for success is the key here. I also am not a fan of the physical knee block. If done consistently, the above methods I described will work. Oh yeah, be sure to teach him each exercise in at least 5 different places since dogs don't generalize. After you've done that, then you can start adding other people to the equation and having them practice with Major.

Good luck!! :)

[RobiLee]

Aly has given great advice. This is one of the things that we were taught in obedience class last Tuesday. The girls are pretty good about not jumping on us when we come in. My problem is when company comes also. They are just all over any guests that come to the door. We haven't been home much this past week so we haven't had any friends visiting to help us out with this. I think this one may take awhile, but we will just keep working at it. ;)

Robin :)

[binka_nugget]

I was going to suggest what Aly said, to step on the leash. I first learned about it on "Good Dog!" (Dr. Stanley Coren's show). It worked for the determined Pit Bullx so it should be no problem for Major since he's still small and hasn't been jumping up for as long.

A funny story about my experience with my jumpy dogs.. I had a friend over once who isn't too fond of dogs. Kai usually runs up to sniff the person and will jump now and then. She immediately yelled "Kai, down!" while he was sniffing and jumped up once. So he immediately layed down but kept sniffing enthusiastically while she kept screaming "down! down!" LOL

[MariaM]

Ok thanks everyone. We've been trying the ignoring thing, but I haven't been doing the exercises, stepping on the leash and that. I will start doing that.

Also, I'm can't remember where I hear this binka_nugget, but one time sombeody's dog was on the bed and she said "Down!" and he layed down! :D

[Tonya]

I used to put my knee out, but the thing that really got them to quit was putting my hand out. I put it out, palm down, so if they jump, they're smacking their ownselves with my hand. It seems to work. For the most part, they don't jump on guests and visitors, but I am still working on that problem.

[Tonya]

Just remembered a few more things...My dog trainer used to tell me to turn my back on Dusty and ignore him. That was kind of difficult cause then, he'd jump on my back and knock me down. Also, she told me to not just tell him "No", but to give him something else to do. He's to excitable to decide what he's supposed to do. So, try also telling Major to sit, so that he knows sitting is appropriate when he greets someone.