Jumping

Jumping is a common behavioural problem. It is most prevalent when greeting guests or when the dog’s own human comes into the house or back into a room.

A lot of dogs actually jump out of respect. Respectful dogs want to groom higher ranking pack members. They show this by licking higher ranking pack members under the chin. Since we are upright on 2 feet they have to jump to reach our chin. Whereas with dogs they can come over low and lick under another dog’s chin. We can then teach those dogs how to greet more appropriately. Big dogs can injure people when jumping on them by knocking them over. Especially with elderly people.

Other dogs will jump more for challenging and testing. You will see this where the dog wants to jump and mouth at your arm or bite at your clothes. Jumping falls under the “attention” pack rule and some dogs will see if they can force attention on you and get away with it. We can also teach these dogs they are not allowed to challenge like that and what is the appropriate way to greet such as sitting nicely.

Reward training only with jumping can often make the problem worse. The dog jumps, we tell them “off”. They get off and maybe we have them sit and then we give them a treat. Dog jumps again and we tell them “off”. They get off and we say “sit” and then give a treat. Smart dogs will quickly figure this pattern out and realize that jumping always results in a reward. 

Or when guests come over, many people will pet a dog to get them to stop jumping which then rewards jumping. We can teach you how to solve all of these issues.