One of the most common behavioral problems with puppies and adult dogs is jumping up on people. They usually jump up for attention, physical contact, and to get close to your face. The reason they keep jumping in spite of us telling them “no” is because it works. It starts working from the time they are puppies when they jump on us and we pick them up because they are so cute. Then they get a little bigger and we pet them while they are up on our leg. Finally we decide to tell them that we don’t want them to jump, after weeks or months of telling them that we do, and we can’t understand why they won’t stop. Often the way we tell them to stop is by bending over, telling them no, and pushing them down. By doing that we give them exactly what they wanted by jumping in the first place - being closer to your face, attention, and physical contact.

Dogs want stuff and they do what works. If jumping works they will keep doing it. So if it doesn’t work they won’t jump, right? Maybe! The problem is that for most dogs jumping up on people has worked for them at some point. It has knowingly or otherwise been rewarded.  So we need to do more than just stop rewarding the behavior. We need to ignore or punish the jumping and teach the dog something that works better for them to get what they want.

Ignoring a dog when it jumps is often affective, but not always easy to do. We can ignore the little lap dogs, but the bigger ones are sometimes too heavy and assertive to just act like it isn’t happening. If I am going to punish a dog for jumping on me my first choice is to stand up tall, turn away, and fold my hands. Punishment doesn’t have to mean doing something to the dog. In this case we are taking something away, our attention. If you are going to punish the dog by doing something to it I don’t recommend the infamous “knee in the chest” method because there is a good chance that the dog gets injured in the process. There are other types of punishment that can be an effective deterrent, but I don’t like to recommend anything without seeing how the dog reacts and making sure the owner is using it properly.

Now that we have ignored or punished the dog for jumping up we have to reward it for not jumping. I always tell a dog to sit when greeting me or someone else.  If it is sitting it is not jumping. We are also teaching it that going up to people and sitting works better than going up and jumping. Dog training in a nutshell is, “give me what I want and I’ll give you what you want”. You want attention, physical contact, and to get close to my face – I want you to sit. When the dog sits we will go down to it and pet it. With guests and strangers you have to have a leash on the dog to keep it from jumping and to enforce the “sit first” rule of greeting.

If you are consistent about ignoring or punishing the jumping and rewarding sitting to be greeted your dog will figure it out in no time.

Mark Kane, certified pet dog trainer, is the owner of DogSpeak – Professional Dog Training in Marietta, Georgia. 404.833.WOOF (9663).