5 Tips to Curb Jumping
One of the biggest complaints I hear as a dog trainer is that a person’s dog is jumping on other people.
Although natural, jumping is a nuisance behavior to many people, mainly because big dogs can knock people over, and even the smallest dog can muddy up someone’s clothes!
How to Get Your Dog to Not Jump on People
The secret to getting your dog to greet people politely is to set them up for success from the get go, and follow our five tips to curb jumping!
Tip 1: Manage the Environment
One of the biggest mistakes I see people make is letting their dog practice jumping in the first place. What does this mean? Basically, your dog can’t jump on people coming into the home, if they’re in their kennel or on a leash tether or even behind a baby gate. As humans, we can predict and be proactive about when someone is coming into the house or approaching your dog, and use tools in the environment to block access to the person until your dog is calm enough to greet in a polite manner!
Tip 2: Be the Most Interesting Person in the Environment
Most of the time, your dog wants to meet a new person or see a house guest because that person is going to give your dog attention. But, what if we flipped the tables and asked those people to ignore your dog, so that you could work on training, and then reward your dog for coming away from those people with a high value reward? Your dog is going to be less likely to be interested in enthusiastically greeting people, and more interested in getting necessary information via sniffing, then returning to you!
Tip 3: Teach a Calm Greeting
Choose a behavior that you want your dog to perform when greeting you and other people. This could be something like leaning against you, sitting, laying down, or simply standing. When your dog approaches you or a person, mark or click the moment they offer that behavior and then proceed to give them calm attention for approximately 3-5 seconds.
Tip 4: Ignore What You Don’t Like, Reward What You Want Repeated
Keep in mind that because your dog wants social interaction, and that’s the motivation for jumping on you, that if you say “off” or push them down when they jump, you’re actually reinforcing the jumping behavior because those actions are still social interactions. Instead, completely ignore your dog when they jump on you; don’t talk, push them down, look at them or anything at all. Wait until they’re standing with four feet on the ground, praise them, then wait for them to offer the preferred greeting behavior or direct them into it, and then mark/click before giving them attention.
Tip 5: Stay Calm & Be Consistent
Training a dog not to jump is a difficult task because it involves everyone to be on the same page. Make sure everyone that is interacting with your dog, including strangers, are rewarding the same behaviors so that your dog can learn quickly what results in attention, and that jumping makes the attention go away! Most of all, stay calm when you’re ignoring, as well as when you’re greeting your dog. Your dog will appreciate your calmness and gradually learn to match your energy level.
Ready to begin training your dog?
Make sure to grab yourself a treat pouch before class to help with training on the go! We personally love this pouch by RUFFWEAR.
