Your heart might burst with happiness when your fluffy bundle of fur and paws jumps up to greet you as you walk through the door. A bad day immediately forgotten.
But should we encourage this type of behaviour? The answer is no. The consequences of your dog jumping up on the wrong person may mean a child or elderly person gets hurt. Or someone who is afraid of dogs is traumatised.
Don’t Reward Jumping Up
Rewards don’t have to equal treats. We may be unintentionally rewarding their behaviour by saying ‘no’ when the puppy does jump up. You are giving your puppy attention.
When I first started working with my own puppies, we were encouraged to turn our backs on our puppies if they jumped up, to demonstrate we were not paying them attention.
This method has its merits but doesn’t teach your puppy what to do instead. It can even make the behaviour worse in the short term as the puppy tries even harder to get your attention by jumping higher and more boisterously.
Be Consistent
You will need help and co-operation from everyone you live with and visitors to your home.
Everyone needs to apply the same approach when meeting and greeting your puppy.
If one family member lets the puppy jump up, but others remain calm, your puppy will soon become confused.
It’s natural for people who haven’t met your puppy and are not familiar with dogs to get over-excited when meeting a small bundle of cuteness. So explain to them in advance that you’re training your puppy and why.
Decide What Behaviour You Want
Getting your dog to sit calmly while distracting with treats or a non-stimulating toy, by the front door is the first step, before anyone comes in.
Practise this exercise for a few minutes over a few days.
Then enlist family members and visitors to enter the house and act calmly, and not excite the puppy.
Keep distracting her so she remains calm and absorbed in what she’s doing, remember to praise her calmness. If she starts to get excited and jump up, remind her that sit is the behaviour you want and as soon as she’s sat, reward and praise.
Be Consistent
Dogs have a sophisticated system of body language and signals to communicate with other dogs and us.
From us they generally have to learn a series of verbal commands and possibly hand signals. But they will still use their preferred method of communication – body language to work out what we are asking.
So if we’re not consistent with what we are saying and our body language, they will get confused.
Ensure you are communicating calmness if you want your puppy to be calm.
Don’t Give Up
If your puppy is taking time to master this skill, be patient. Don’t give up as a bad job and simply shut the puppy away when anyone arrives. Ultimately the puppy won’t learn anything other than it gets shut away from the fun when visitors arrive.
Remember that it takes time and a lot of repetitions to train some behaviours.
Dogs are highly social animals, jumping up to greet another dog is simply natural behaviour to them.
Once your puppy has mastered how to greet people at home, it’s time to set a new challenge. Meeting people outside the house where there are lots of distractions.
Your puppy may find this much more difficult where they are on sensory overload. You need to remain patient and consistent. Keep practising and reinforce at home where there are less distractions. Simply keep adding in some outside training every so often so your puppy gets the idea without getting overwhelmed.
As with all training we want to make it a positive and rewarding experience for you and your puppy. Enjoy spending quality time together and celebrate your wins.
Don’t get disheartened if your puppy doesn’t seem to be learning, but instead consider how you might make it easier for her and set her up for success. Perhaps your training treats are not high enough value to keep her interested. Swapping kibble for cheese or chicken might be the answer.
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