Prevent your dog from jumping up on people. No matter how friendly your dog is, or how large or small this should never be allowed to happen. You may meet someone in the street or park and your dog jumps up them or you may be at home and your dog jumps on a family member or visitor.
To have someone elses dog jump on you is annoying so don't do the same to them.
You may be out walking your dog after a rainfall the night before when your dog decides that he wants to play with you. If you let your dog jump up, you will have his muddy feet all over you.
Now that is annoying. Even worse it could have been someone you met in the park. Your dog hasn’t been trained so he thinks it is ok.
Letting your dog jump up on people is embarrassing.
It could have been a child or an older person? Someone could get hurt. Now that is dangerous and it could also be costly.
Why do dogs jump up?
The reason he jumps up is because he is seeking attention or he is asserting his alpha status. Both are easily rectified with TLC and obedience training.
If you let your dogs jump all over you when you come home you are teaching them bad habits. Our dogs sit and wait until we give them attention.
When we come in the house we may have our arms full of shopping or whatever. We don’t want to get knocked over by a large dog or tripped over by a small dog. They sit and wait.
They get lots of fuss - but when we are ready.
Stop your dog jumping up - now.
Set out ground rules as soon as you get your puppy or dog. Dogs jumping on anyone should never be allowed and definitely not encouraged. It may seem cute at first, particularly if it is a puppy or you may think it is cool that the older dog you got from the city pound is affectionate and wants to bond with you. Don’t let it happen.
Your dog is probably trying to get attention. If you fuss him then you are rewarding him when you should be stopping your dog jumping up. He needs to know - and so does the rest of your family - that it is bad behavior and unacceptable for him to jump up. As always, your commands, rewards and reprimands must always remain consistent.
You cannot be consistent if you reprimand him for jumping up and your daughter encourages him during their playing. Everyone needs to be consistent in their commands. If not, the poor dog will never know what is right or wrong.
Don’t shout or rant and rave, you will confuse him even more. What you must do is learn to obedience train him.
Don’t ignore it just because the little old lady who he was jumping up on said ‘it’s ok. He’s just being friendly’. It is she who is being polite to save your embarrassment.
I learned a new technique
I have always been able to correct the problem of a dog jumping up on people. Just recently I was asked to stop a large dog that would always be jumping up. It had always been a problem with the owner since they acquired the dog but they had never been able to stop this bad behavior. I was fully booked up and couldn’t accept any new clients but I gave them my training program to try.
I was getting calls nearly every day because the owners could not correct the problem. Now I have given this training program to many people and it always worked so I suggested that either the owners were not following the program completely or the dog was just too disobedient.
I don’t like to turn potential clients away so I looked on the internet for an alternative training option for them to try. I found two. One was Karen Prior’s clicker training and the other was Daniel Stevens SitStayFetch program.
I’m always looking for an opportunity to try new methods. I’m not so arrogant to think that my methods are better than anyone else’s. Far from it, I often try alternatives and review them.
After downloading Daniel Stevens’s program, I thought I would try it out on this dog. By the end of the weekend, I had got excellent results and the owners were able to continue on their own. See my review of this program.
My method to make a dog stop jumping up.
Watching dogs is second nature to me and you need to get in the habit of watching your dog to be able to preempt any moves. When your dog is about to make a lunge for you, put your arm straight out, palm towards his face and say no. if your hand is in the way, he has no where to jump to. As he settles back. Immediately give an alternative command such as sit. If he sits praise him for sitting.
Another method that I sometimes use to stop dog from jumping behavior, is either turn away or step back so that he will miss you. Do not speak and do not make eye contact. When he no longer tries jumping up, give him a command that you know he will obey. When he obeys, praise him. He soon learns that he does not get praise for jumping up.
I would suggest to anyone who has a dog jumping problem, or other dog behavior problem, to learn how to train a puppy. Training your own puppy dog is both rewarding and satisfying. The program that I recommend is SitStayFetch.
