At times it can be difficult to understand why our furbabies do some of the things they do. It’s important to remember that all dogs come with instinct and habits that may be contrary to peacefully cohabiting with us. However, with patience, the right training and persistence, your dog’s behaviour can be modified to be more acceptable, if not removed completely.
With training, it’s very important that we clearly show the dog what behaviour we want to happen. All dog behaviour training relies on one principal, that through repetitive reinforcement, we can teach a dog’s brain to do the preferred behaviour over its instinctive one.
We have created a series of blogs that will help you tackle different behaviour issues with practical and simple advice. The first in the series is “Jumping Up” – on you, the family or your guest.
Be it in the dog park, at the front door or generally out in public, the aim is to stop our dogs from jumping up by using consistent messages and actions.
First and foremost, you or anyone that interacts with the dog must be aware that they need to refrain from giving the dog any type of verbal or physical praise when he/she does this. This may be difficult as you want to show your furbaby affection, however with jumping in particular this can undo a lot of the hard work you have put in already if the behaviour is not consistently reacted to.
As with many dog behavioural issues, there is more than one effective way to solve this issue. Depending on your dog, you may need to progress through them, or use multiple in order to get the desired outcome.
If you see no improvement after applying one technique several times throughout the week, that is a clear indication you need to change your training to a technique that is more suitable for your dog.
Below are some methods you can try:
Ignore – If your dog is doing its jumping mostly at the front door due to excitement when people enter, the first port of call is to ignore them for a few minutes until they have somewhat calmed down.
Turning around – A simple turn around when the dog jumps may be all you need for puppies. It shows them that jumping gives them the opposite effect of what they wanted, your attention. It is also helpful in the ignore phase.
Knee push – This is a gentle and slow physical push with your knee to get the dog off you.
Standing on a leash – This is best accomplished with a guest or helper and is a great tool for when people are visiting who don’t yet know the dog greeting rules. At times when you know your dog will jump, keep your dog on a leash and stand on it to restrict them from jumping.
Using treats – Does your dog have all four paws on the ground? Great, praise them with affection and treats. You don’t need to wait for your dog to do a backflip before its time for a treat, if you can see they are making even the slightest effort to maintain contact with the floor, put dog some treats on the ground to reward them.
In most instances, jumping up is one of those behaviours that if you can fix it in one place it will tend to apply in other environments. So, for example, if you fix it at the door, it will translate over to the dog park.
In our next monthly blog will address the issue of leash pulling, which can be a common and serious problem for dog owners, especially those who have large or powerful dogs.