How can I train dogs not to jump up on people?
As has been pointed out, you need to enlist the help of your friends to do this. It was astonishingly easy to train our dog to not jump on us (we used the turn-away-and-ignore technique), but he still jumps a little on everybody else. He’s small enough that he never overwhelms anyone, which is why we haven’t yet put in the not-insignificant effort to get him to jump on nobody, but having read plenty, I know how it will have to go. We will have to explain things very carefully to our friends before they get into the house exactly what they have to do (turn away and ignore him when he runs up to them and jumps). We have to be very insistent about it because almost everybody says “it’s okay, I don’t mind”. I used to say this too, not realizing that every time I petted, talked to, or otherwise gave attention to a dog that jumps on me, I was training it to jump on me. The other problem we have is that he runs to the door. We need to get him to sit down and wait for people to come in so that
Looks like folks have given the whole range of advice so far, I can only tell you what my trainer suggested and which worked well for me: Dogs learn by repetition – because we can only communicate with noises, some hand signals, and distributing treats, these are your tools and they must be used again and again, often together. If you’re like me you respond to you dog jumping on you (when you get home probably) by making some noises, putting your hands on him to brush him off, and telling him what a putz he was for jumping on you as soon as he gets down. If that’s so, then you’re also finding that this technique doesn’t work. My trainer suggested that the above method was actually discouraging my dog when he finally did follow my command: I would use a mean tone to tell him he made a mistake when I should have been encouraging him immediately upon him following my “off” command. Instead of waiting for him to jump up then encourage him when he followed the “off” command, he told me to t
This is something any good dog training class will go over. Here’s the basic techniques I remember from when we did it with our dogs (who are jumpers) Enlist a friend to come to your door. The process starts before the door even opens. Get your dog to sit. Put your hand on the knob and start to open the door. If he gets up, close the door (starting over) and get him to sit again. Repeat until you can get the door open without him getting up. When the person actually comes in, you need them to help you. If the dog starts to jump on them, the person needs to turn away from the dog and ignore it. As the owner, you try to get the dog back into a sit. If they won’t, the door closes, rinse and repeat. Every success, they get a treat, little pieces of dried liver are good. In the beginning you’ll be rewarding any little success, like sitting for 2 seconds, then 5 etc. Then it’ll be getting the door open with no problem, treat, and so forth. Be lavish with the treats at any successes. You basi
You have lots of advice here, but let me tell you about a technique I learned in obedience classes that solved this problem for my beagle when none of the above worked. 1. Come in. Let the dog jump up on you. 2. Immediately say “Off!,” in a low, snappy tone of voice. Grab the dog by his collar/scruff. 3. Quickly walk toward the dog. Take small, shuffling steps so that you don’t step on his back paws. The dog will backpedal to stay upright. 4. Say “Sit!” and push the dog down onto his haunches. Let go. 5. If the dog tries to get up, correct him and get him to sit again. Once he’s held the sit for a few seconds, praise him. The entire maneuver should take less than three seconds. I started doing this and within three days my previously insane jumper had begun to greet people by running up to them and sitting. Needless to say, you have to praise this behaviour or it’ll stop. Now I just completely ignore him until he sits, and then I give him lots of praise. He understands how it works. On
My dog used to jump up, I learned the knee technique and it has helped tremendously. Basically, they jump up, you bring your knee up into their chest and either knock them backwards or flip them backwards. Either way, they get the point. The hard part is transferring the experience from you to everyone else (my dog will still occasionally jump up on people who don’t know how to prevent it). But the technique RustyBrooks mentions will work well too, presuming your dogs are into treats.
