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Often times owners and strangers alike are guilty of instilling bad behavior in their dogs.
You just got yourself a dog and the excitement between you two consists of kisses and cuddles. After long days of work you come home and your dog (un)patiently waits for you by the entrance. Once you walk in the house, you are greeted with whimpers and jumps of excitement. Most people are so pleased that they were missed, this bad behavior is dismissed and rewarded with attention. What should you do?
The number one cause of your dog jumping on people is, well, excitement. People often encourage jumping with positive reinforcement. When we need to negatively punish jumping behavior. If your dog is already in the habit of jumping on people, here are a few tips that may helpl:
Have your dog sit before people pet them, and remain sitting while being greeted. If they get up, they no longer receive attention;
Have your dog lay down before children pet them, and remain laying down as they are greeted. (See my desensitization blog for other info);
If your dog gets excited when people come to visit, I’d recommend fitting one spot in the house your dog could sit and wait to be greeted. (It may help if the dog could keep an eye on the entrance);
If you notice your dog is going jump up on you, lift your knee to your dogs chest and command “no bark”.
For those strangers that ask to pet your dog and say “It’s okay, I don’t mind if they jump”. Do NOT let it sly, tell them that you’re trying to stop that behavior. Some of you might be wondering why jumping is such a big deal. For those of you that question the matter, I’ll leave you with a story.
A friend of mine got her very first puppy, when the puppy was small she didn’t mind the dog jumping on her. Once the dog become 80Ibs, the jumping became a problem. Especially, when the dog was jumping in children and older folk. Now you might say, well I have a small dog so the jumping doesn’t matter. In my opinion it does not matter, jumping is still RUDE.