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Do you have a jumping dog when you walk in your house?
When a dog jumps up on you he is greeting you — it’s just his way of saying hello.
If you don’t want a jumping dog every time you walk through your door, then you’ll want to try to correct the behavior soon after it begins. Otherwise, it will just take you longer to stop the jumping dog behavior.
Fortunately, this is pretty easy to fix.
How To Stop A Jumping Dog
The trick is to ignore the dog when he is jumping, and only give praise and a reward when he is not jumping.
That means you never want to pet a jumping dog — because petting is a reward and will only reinforce the dog’s jumping behavior.
The following video shows how you can train your dog to stop jumping on people in 2 simple steps:
- When you walk into the room and your dog starts to jump up, turn away and ignore your dog.
- With your back to your dog, keep an eye on your dog over your shoulder and once he has all 4 paws on the floor, give a reward for not jumping.
Repeat those 2 steps until you are able to walk into the room without your dog jumping up on you.
Then, have a friend come over and practice these same 2 steps with your dog to make sure that he learns to not jump on you or other people.
Now, see it in action:
Other Ways To Stop A Jumping Dog
A few other ways you can train your dog not to jump are:
- Walk away slowly. This gives the dog a calming signal and reinforces him to stay on the ground, rather than jumping up. Your behavior is key — so remain very calm and slow.
- Become a tree stump. Do not move, look at, talk to, or push the dog. Just stand there, the dog will get the hint and keep all 4 paws on the ground. (This is similar to ignoring your dog, as explained in the video.)
- Teach “go visit”. This teaches your dog to go lay down in front of the person you are pointing to. It’s a much calmer way for a dog to greet a visitor than jumping up on them!
What we did with our min pins is we taught them to dance.
Now, when we see them starting to jump we tell them to dance instead. That way, they won’t jump up on someone but they will do their dance knowing that they will get rewarded for dancing instead of jumping up on people.
I have 2 Miniature Pinschers. My husband and I consider them our 4-legged kids.
