My dog jumps up on people?

Question

My dog jumps up on people when they walk in the door or where ever we are he jumps up for excitment. I have been trying to brake this habbit since he was a puppy and he still continues to do this.
How do you think I can brake this habbit?

Answer 1

Jumping is normal dog behavior, so most dogs will jump up on people unless they are taught not to do so. All canines, wild or domesticated live by a set of “canine etiquette rules” taught to each pup from birth. As soon as they are able to eat solid food, the mother canine carries bits of food in her mouth back to her waiting pups. On her return, the young pups greet her by licking the bits of food from around her lips. As canines grow older, this behavior translates into acceptable, canine greeting. If you have more than one dog, or if your dog encounters a dog friend, they are likely to lick each other around the mouth to say hello. This behavior is similar to the human habit of shaking hands.

As early as a puppy can remember, it has been taught to greet its mother and other dogs in this manner.

When a pup moves from its litter into your family, its human pack, it retains this “Glad to see you,” greeting behavior. However, humans walk upright and have mouths that are high off the floor. When your dog is happy to see you and wants to greet you in the only way he knows how, he has to jump in an attempt to lick you around this high-up mouth. People find the jumping up and the mouth licking rather disgusting and often react by scolding the dog or pushing it away.

To a dog not taught differently, this can be very confusing. To put this in human terms, if you have been taught that the polite, proper way to meet a new person or greet an old acquaintance is to shake hands, and you suddenly found yourself in a different culture where shaking hands was not the custom and was even found to be repulsive, you would be confused if you were pushed away and looked on with disgust. If someone took you aside and taught you that in this culture people bow to greet each other instead of shaking hands, you could easily comply and soon be out greeting people in their acceptable way.
Your dog is this stranger in a new culture, and can be taught an acceptable way to greet people. There are many training methods to break a dog of jumping up. One of the oldest is to bring your knee up on his chest as he’s in the act of jumping. I have not had a great deal of success with this method, nor have I hears of others using this method very well. Another way is to have the dogs leash and collar on. When he jumps pull him with a sharp jerk down and away, saying a command like “Off!” (Do not use the word “down” to make the dog stop jumping. If you do the slightest bit of further training, “down” will be used to tell the dog to lie down.)

The best way to train a dog not to jump is to teach him an alternative behavior that is more acceptable to humans such as “sit,” and “sit-stay.” Each time you return home from running errands, have a dog biscuit handy. When Fido rushes to greet you, say “sit!” If he jumps and squirms, ignore his advances. When he sits, he gets the treat and the greeting. When friends come to your home and when you meet people outside, tell Fido “sit-stay” by your side before he gets petted. He should only get pats and treats if he remains sitting.

Don’t scold your dog, be patient, and only reward the positive behavior of sitting nicely. Most dogs quickly learn

Answer 2

I KNOW how you can stop this behaviour immediately. When the dog jumps up at you, he is asking for attention. And well you most probibly say "no, down/off(etc)" right? Well that is the WRONG thing to do. If he jumps up on you, pretend that you dont have a dog, continue walking. That way you will not give him what he wants-attention. When he stops jumping and thinks that "oh she wont listen to me if i jump" then say hello and play around with him, and if he jumps up repeat.

Any questions or conserns:
[e-mail]

Answer 3

Coaxing, treats, ineffectually saying 'no, no.. settle", trying to distract her or all those other theories do NOT work. Treats are just flat dumb - bribe doggy to be good rather than make doggy be good and what happens the day that doggy ddecides it would rather do what it wants to do than get the treat, eh????

Always wonder if the people who advocate "kitchu koo have a cookie if you sit ,please do it"..... when their teenager is caught smoking pot bribe them to good behavior with a new car?? After all, don't want to ever correct the bad behavior so lets just reward them for the good behavior of promising not to do it again.

Training is positive (verbal praise and pets) and negative (correction by being made to do it and verbal disapproval.)

Unless your dog is so well trained that they will do a "down" anywhere anytime in a split second and hold for up to an hour or more, then -

Stop jumping by any of these methods:

(1) A loud “No” and push her off and hold her down and scold her with “Bad, Bad Bad”. Then tell her “Okay,” let her up and give her a pat (if she doesn’t leap again.)

(2) A loud “No” and time it so that as she comes off the ground, you bring your foot forward and step on her back foot.

(3) A loud “No” and as she comes up off the ground, raise your knee so that she hits it with her chest and bounces off.

(4) Put the dog on a leash when people are cooming over. She leaps, you roar NO and snatch her back mid air with the leash, grab her by the collar/back of the neck and pin her flat on the ground on her belly, read her the riot act and hold her don for 15-10 seconds. Slowly let her up, make her keep all 4 feet on the ground and let her get petted, If she does, she gets praised, if she doesn't, down she goes again.


This jumping on people will stop just being an annoyance and turn into a serious problem when the dog leaps at someoone, they try to avoid it, get tangles up and fall - breaking a hip! Welcome to getting sued - and losing. With that potential outcome (and even a leaping Pomeranian can trip someone, let alone a larger dog who can just knock them down), anything is fair while you arrange obedience school for the tow of you.

Use a STERN DEEP voice that brooks no argument about the matter and , don't let your voice slide upwards into high tones unless you are giving praise. When you give a command, used an authoritative voice and sound like you mean it - and not "would you please 'come'-if you happen to feel like it of course."

You always have your hands and your voice. Use them

By the way, many women in particular, but men do it too, have a real problem with voice control, When they get upset or frustrated, their voice go UP. The dog ignores them. In the pack, the boss dog or alpa uses deep tones (rumble in the chest, growl etc) to express displeasure and get compliance from the dogs lower in the pecking order. A dog making a high pitched sound (yapping, yelping etc) is not only not going to get compliance as they are perceived as ineffectual and the not-Alpha, not-the-boss but that it is giving an invitation to play.


Now you both need a GOOD obedience class - and that is NOT Petsmart or Petco.

GO here to find contacts in you area that can help you locate and obedience trainer who works with all breeds and who does AKC obedience competitions competing at what they claim to teach – no proof of ability like winning:

http://www.akc.org/clubs/search/index.cf...

http://www.akc.org/clubs/search/index.cf... (set on all breeds)


http://www.akc.org/clubs/search/index.cf...

Even it they are an hour or more away, they will know other people all over the state.

Answer 4

Dog’s Jumping Up Reasons :

Reason 1 :
puppy try’s to jump up to reach his mother .

Reason 2 :
Puppies do jumping up to greet their mother and owner.

Reason 3 :
Dog’s jumping up is attention seeking behaviour for his owner .

Reason 4 :
Dog may be jump up when greeting his owner and get his owner’s attention .

Reason 5 :
Some time dog’s jumping up for getting the food.

Reason 6 :
Jumping up behaviour is dog’s playful behaviour.

Answer 5

Ignore Ann A's response; while she has good points; what she is telling you to do constitutes animal cruelty (in another post she told the owner she would/has slammed her dog with her fist--she needs to be brought up on charges). If she were to knee one of my personal protection trained dogs or rotties; they would take her leg off.

NEVER STEP ON OR KICK OR PUNCH YOUR DOG UNLESS IT IS TO SAVE YOUR LIFE OR SOMEONE ELSES!

Firmly tell the dog NO; and take his front paws and set them back on the ground and give a sit command.

Answer 6

My godmother has a dog Scruffy, he does the same thing, I guess It's for excitement because when you see someone new or an old friend, your excited, especialy if your dog is used to being indoors.

Answer 7

It's just his personality, don't worry about it! But if you really want him to stop it, try taking him to obedience school, or keeping him seperated from people when he's really excited.

Answer 8

first of all does he know the word NO and if he doesnt you need to teach him that first then you can yell no if he keeps doing it
be strict but not so strict that the dog is afraid of you

Answer 9

obedience school