Dog Training Solutions - Q&A - 2

Question:

I have a border cross coolie, he is 6 months and constantly jumps and bites when anyone walks in the yard. It's stopped people from coming around.

Answer:

You are not alone in having a dog with a problem jumping up, so I know it can be very frustrating for dog owners.

The action of jumping up is a part of their ritualised greeting behaviour - essentially I think a lot of jumping up stems from a dogs desire to sniff our mouths to "see where we have been and what we have eaten" - they do this with each other, but obviously don't have to jump up for it with most other dogs - this is such a normal puppy behaviour. Then grows from their into a learned behaviour depending how we have accidentally reinforced it - most likely with attention, even if that attention is trying to shove them back to the ground. Particularly if your dog is easily excited, then jumping up can quickly become a bad habit.

So let's have a look at some simple home truths for jumping up issues.

1. Take responsibility for your dog

This may seem like a obvious statement, but it is a big place where I see dog owners fail in handling a dog that is jumping up. If you have a dog that likes to jump up on visitors, then ensure your dog is on lead, tethered or penned so that they can't make the mistake of jumping up on your guests in the first place. This is the hardest part - being organised enough to manage the behaviour of your dog.

2. Other people will sabotage your training

This is why I gave you step number one above - because people are awful at taking the instruction of a dog owner, with all the good intention in the world, other people think that they know better than you in how to deal with your dog. They are wrong of course. They will pat your dog when they jump up. They will push your dog away when they jump up (making the dog more eager to play 99% of the time). They will tell you it is ok, cause they have a dog too, meanwhile doing something else that causes your dog to jump up more - it is crazy! If you can't manage your dog and take responsibility for the training don't expect others too.

3. Ignoring jumping up doesn't work!

This is really important, because there is some serious misinformation out there in the dog owning world, that is setting up dog owners to fail - and that advice is, ignore a dog that is jumping up on you and they will stop jumping up. It isn't true. The jumping can be very "self-reinforcing" - it is an exciting thing to do, often you get attention for it - so that random occasional pay off (attention) actually strengthens the behaviour. With out reinforcing the behaviour that we want from our dogs - ignoring the bad behaviour is not a solution.

4. What you are doing now isn't working

If what you are doing at the moment was going to work with your dog - you wouldn't be asking this question. The definition of insanity is said to be repeating something and expecting a different response. So if you currently push your dog to get them to stop jumping on you, or knee them or yell at them - it is a fair assumption to make that this tactic is not working and it is time to change tact.

What do you do?

Consistency: As you go through this training that will be outlined below - remember that the 2 keys to training is consistency and repetition. With those 2 keys we see a steady progress - in this case a reduction in jumping until it extinguishes.

Reward what you want: Any time the dog isn't jumping up is a winner, the exercise is called 4 paws on the floor - because as long as those 4 paws are on the floor we are going to generously reinforce that behaviour.

If your dog is jumping up at you before you go outside the exercise is about waiting for what you want to see (the dog sitting or 4 paws on the floor) before you go out the door. Dog jumps, wait for 4 paws, as you go to the door handle - the dog my jump up again - so you need to reset - take your hand off the door handle. The dog starts to piece together that their actions have consequences - of you paying them attention or not. Rewards aren't always food - they are what the dog wants and in this example it is you outside.

Once you are outside you can start dropping food on the floor (use good stuff like cheese or chicken) - keeping your dogs focus on the floor during the initial excitement of greeting means that he won't be jumping up.

Do this for a couple of weeks or a month and see how you go - is there a reduction in jumping up?