Most dogs like jumping on people because that is what they do when they interact and play with other dogs. My Siberian Husky likes to jump because she likes to lick at people’s faces and for her special friends, nibble at their chin.
However, many people consider jumping to be rude dog behavior. Jumping can also be dangerous if the dog is large, because he can easily knock down and hurt a child or a senior adult.
Interestingly though, dog jumping behavior has much more to do with us than with our dogs.
Why Do Dogs Jump on People?
Dogs jump on people because they usually get rewarded for their jumping behavior.
When a dog jumps, our first reaction is to use our hands to push the dog away. Sometimes, we also shout at the dog and make a lot of noise. All this sound and rapid hand movement only gets the dog even more excited. From the dog’s point of view, we are initiating a fun wrestling game!
In this way dogs learn that –
Jumping = Fun wrestling game and
No-jumping = Taps on the head or being ignored.
This encourages dogs to jump even more because we are rewarding their jumping behavior and ignoring them when they are not jumping.
Rapid hand movement and excited sounds can also trigger a dog’s prey drive. That is why while we are at a dog park, it is dangerous to run or move about in an erratic fashion. Doing so will likely get a pack of dogs on our tail.
How to Stop Your Dog from Jumping on People
To stop our dog from jumping on people, we must first change what people do when dogs jump.
When a dog jumps, I calmly turn away from him and fold up my arms. This teaches the dog that when he jumps, he only gets ignored and doesn’t get any attention at all (no-talk, no-touch, and no-eye-contact).
No eye contact is especially important because that can be seen as an attention-reward by our dog. It may also be interpreted as an invitation to come over and play.
This rule is the hardest for people to follow because it is difficult not to look at a cute dog when he is trying his hardest to get our attention.
Why Can’t I Get My Dog to Stop Jumping?
In order to get our dog to stop jumping on people, we must get everyone that our dog meets to consistently ignore him when he jumps. This can often be difficult to achieve.
What ends up happening is that some people follow the instructions, some people only partially follow the instructions, and some people don’t listen at all.
As a result, our dog gets rewarded sometimes for jumping. This teaches our dog the following –
Some types of jumping = Fun wrestling game.
Rather than deterring him from his jumping behavior, this only teaches him to try jumping on everyone, and to try different types of jumping, because you never know which one will trigger the fun wrestling game.
The jumping dog behavior is actually more of a people issue rather than a dog issue.
Another possibility is to use a collar and leash to lead our dog away.
We do not have too much control over what others do while meeting our dog. However, if we have our dog on a leash, we can simply lead him away every time he jumps.
When my Shiba Inu jumps, I no-mark the behavior to let him know that it is undesirable. Then I lead him a short distance away, and get him to do a Sit. When he is calm, we try the greeting again. In this way, he learns that –
Jumping = Move away from people and greeting stops, but
Feet on the ground = Greeting continues with attention, affection, and play.
Using Collar Corrections to Stop Dog Jumping
Some people suggest using collar corrections to stop dog jumping.
For example, we can apply an aversive correction (e.g. a leash jerk) whenever our dog jumps. In this way, the dog may be getting rewarded by the person he meets, but at the same time he is getting a pain stimulus from us. To stop the jumping behavior we must ensure that our pain stimulus trumps the wrestling game reward given by others.
Collar corrections can work, but it is also risky. As with all pain based aversive methods, timing and technique are extremely important. We must correct at exactly the right time, and in exactly the right manner. Then, we must properly redirect the pain so that our dog does not make the wrong associations.
If we make mistakes, the dog may develop even more dangerous greeting behavior.
- A dog may learn that when he tries to play with a person, he gets hurt on the neck. This teaches the dog not to play with people, or worse, to see people as a threat that needs to be kept away. This may ultimately result in dog aggression towards people.
- A dog may learn that it is only safe to wrestle when we are not around. This encourages him to escape or stay away from us, because we are the source of pain and other unpleasant things.
What is the Best Thing to Do to Stop Dog Jumping?
So what is the best thing to do to stop dog jumping?
As described above, there is no perfect solution. The best solution will depend on us, our dog’s temperament, as well as what we want from and for our dog.
Some people want perfect control of their dog and feel that nothing, short of perfect domination, is the answer. In this case, pain is often a strong motivator, and collar corrections give us good short term control.
Some people have put in a lot of effort to train their dog not to jump, and do not want the dog learning bad habits from others. In this case, we can just leave and not let our dog meet people who cannot follow our dog greeting instructions.
Finally there are people who let their dogs jump. However, it is necessary to properly manage the dog so that he does not jump on children or seniors. Jumping dogs require a bit more management and vigilance from their owners, however, they also get to have a lot of fun.
We adopted an 8 month old mini boxer about 4 days ago. She is a crazy hyper 20 lb jumping machine My husband and I have been pretty successful with getting her to not jump on us, but our youngest three children are now pretty much refusing to leave their rooms when she’s loose (they’re 4 and 6, so not a whole lot bigger than she is) because she’s too rough. She’s not mean, but she’s very strong, and they scream and try to run when she runs at them and jumps on them because they’re genuinely afraid of her. Obviously this winds her up more. We step in and stop her or try to prevent her from doing this altogether, but at some point she needs to understand that that’s bad, especially with little kids who can be knocked down and scratched when she jumps. How do we teach her? My husband says we’ll give it two weeks and if we can’t stop her, she’s going back.
When training my Husky puppy, I have her on-lead and I am right there so that I can supervise her and teach her what to do while greeting people.
Dogs jump because jumping gets them attention, and creates a lot of movement, noise, and excitement. The dog thinks that it is a fun game, which encourages her to jump more.
To teach my puppy not to jump-
1. It is necessary for me to create a calm environment. I make sure she is calm before we move toward a greeting, and I make sure that the other person is calm as well.
2. The leash allows me to stay in control and to prevent charging, jumping, and other over-excited behaviors.
3. If my puppy is calm and able to focus on me, I reward her well with food and we move one step closer to the other person. Here is more on the people desensitization exercises that I do.
4. If I am unable to supervise, I either tether my puppy to me, or I put my puppy in an enclosure. The more successful calm encounters my puppy has, the more calm she becomes during future greetings. The more jumping, shouting, and running that occurs, the more she will get excited and want to jump. Therefore, in addition to creating successful calm greetings, it is also very important to prevent high-energy-jumpy greetings.
5. Huskies, especially young Huskies are very high energy. Boxers are also high energy dogs. Therefore, I make sure to exercise my Husky puppy very well and engage her in positive structured activities so that she has some good outlets to expend her energy. She is more calm and able to learn after she has gotten rid of some of her zoomies. 😀 Playing structured games with my puppy is also a good way to teach her impulse control.
Here is more on how I trained my puppy.
I also set up a fixed routine and a consistent set of house rules. I motivate my puppy to follow house rules by following the Nothing in Life is Free program.
Hey!
I have a major dilemma. My 10-month-old Border Collie/Lab/Mereema cross is a hyper mess. She loves to great people and other dogs, and she loves to fly at these people, usually a wet muddy mess, which doesn’t leave us very popular at the park.
I know it starts with the owner, but she WONT jump on me, as she knows I won’t tolerate it, but at the park, people either let her, or walk into her, or any means of action, and she just doesn’t seem to get it.
We go for walks with another dog trainer, and she constantly walks into my pup and does what a person is suppose to, and Lady still thinks it is just some huge game.
I can’t work on her at home, because like I said, she doesn’t jump on me, and at the park, where she is off leash, by the time we get to her she’s already done the damage.
Some people bend down to her, to prevent her from jumping, but she is a wiggly mess as well, being an excitable puppy, and still leaves a wet muddy mess all over people’s legs.
I’m at a loss of what to do, it seems nothing works.
Do you have any suggestions??
Some things that I do –
1. I get some friends or neighbors to help me with jump training. We start in a very low stimulus environment, e.g. inside the house, and then slowly increase the environmental challenge as my dog learns.
2. We do recall training. It is important for off-leash dogs to have a very strong recall. This article from the ASPCA has a good list of recall training techniques.
3. I set my dog up for success and only let him go off-leash in safe environments that he can handle. I walk him on-leash when we are in high stimulus environments.
I have a 6-year-old golden who has never been socialized properly. She’s nice and calm with me but goes into an excited frenzy every time she sees anyone else, even my parents. This usually isn’t a problem as she lives outdoors, but it gets very noisy when someone comes to the door and she barks non-stop. I can’t desensitize her as she tends to bark and jump when she sees people and it scares them away because they think she will bite them even though she just covers you with a lot of fur. She’s not fierce or territorial, just too excited and happy to see people.
We are considering getting her a Sibe friend at the end of the year and move them both indoors, but I’m worried about how she’ll react as she also has no prior experience with other dogs. I live in a country where dog parks hardly exist and half the population are not allowed to have contact with dogs, so I don’t know how to expose her to other dogs properly as I also don’t know any doggie friends. All the websites I’ve been to assume that I can go to a dog park and socialize her but it’s not possible for me. Do you have any advice? I don’t want her frightening or overreacting to the new dog when it comes.
I also read that you dislike it when dogs are kept outside, and believe me, I have always thought that a dog’s place is indoors with the family, but I’m just sixteen and when we got Sandy my parents insisted that she live outdoors. She does have her own sheltered kennel with food and water and everything, and a large area to run. She only wears a collar when on walks, is never chained and it doesn’t snow here. Still, I understand that a dog living outside isn’t the same as one living inside; I’ve been sneaking her inside for a couple of hours every day for the past few months under the excuse of letting her go on the treadmill. I’m hoping my parents will grow accustomed to her presence indoors soon and accept it, but they seem to love the furniture more than the dog. What do you do when the problem isn’t with the dog but with the people involved?
I don’t think that there is anything inherently wrong with having an outside dog. However, as you say, when we keep a dog outside, we need to make sure that he has a comfortable shelter, and lots of clean water. Dogs are also pack animals and need to spend time with their family, need to be trained on how to interact with people, and need good structured exercise every day.
Some dog breeds are also unsuited for outside living. For example, my Shiba Inu, Sephy, does not like being outside for long periods of time. He stays out for maybe 30 minutes and then prefers to stay inside the house most of the time. My Sibes love being outside a lot more, but because of their thick fur, they do not do well in the heat. During the summer months, they also spend most of their time inside the house.
To summarize, the outside-dog question, as with most dog questions, is not in either black or white. Whether we keep our dog inside or outside, we want to make sure that he is comfortable, that his needs are properly met, and that he has a good quality of life.
I went through a similar thing when I was growing up. We had a family dog, a mutt. I loved that dog and still love and miss him today. I write a little about him here.
Hello Melody,
The key with people desensitization is to start with a very very weak version of the stimulus – weak enough that our dog is able to stay calm and still listen to us.
When I was doing people desensitization exercises with Sephy, I used distance to weaken the strength of the stimulus. I had Sephy on-leash and had a friend read a book under a tree. In this way, the target person is not moving and also not giving any attention to Sephy. I make sure to stand far away from my friend – far enough away that Sephy is calm and able to listen to me. I only did these exercises in a large, quiet, and enclosed space where I know we will not be disturbed.
Here is more on my experiences with people desensitization.
Distance can also be used to conduct dog-to-dog desensitization exercises. Sephy was pretty reactive to other dogs when he was young, so we did a lot of desensitization training with him at our local SPCA. We started training with a single, calm dog, that was also on-leash, and engaged with her trainer. I had Sephy on-leash, and a far distance away – far enough away that he is not reacting to the other dog.
Here is more on my dog-to-dog desensitization experiences.
With Sephy, what worked best in terms of retraining his reactive behavior is to –
1. Do training in a structured environment.
2. Start very small and with a very weakened version of the stimulus, so that he learns to stay calm and to associate the stimulus with positive events.
3. Set him up for success, and make sessions short, fun, and rewarding.
My Emily is a lab/springer spaniel mix. She is so so smart. I am trying to train her but I am having problems with her pouncing and play biting my 2 year old. She isn’t aggressive at all, she just loves him and wants to play. She is too big and has hurt him several times and now he is afraid of her. What is the best way to make her stop?
With Sephy (my Shiba Inu), I did people desensitization exercises with him to curb his excitement level while greeting people.
I only let Sephy greet people when he is calm. As soon as he gets excited, we move away. When he is calm again, we retry the greeting. In this way, he learns –
Getting excited + jumping = no playing and no attention,
Calm and paws on the ground = attention and play.
In addition to greeting rules, I also have play rules. If Sephy doesn’t follow play rules, then play stops temporarily. He likes to play, so he is very motivated to follow the rules. Here is a bit more on our dog play rules.
I also throw in many play breaks to help him refocus on me, and manage his level of excitement. Sephy is more likely to lose control and not listen when he is over-excited, so I set him up for success by managing his excitement level throughout a play session.
We’ve got the “fold up your arms and calmly turn away” part down pat. It often works. But what do we do when the dog grabs the back of our clothing and starts a tug of war? He’s pretty strong, and I don’t want his excitement to keep escalating.
Hello Tammy,
If it is my own dog, that is jumping on me at home, then I usually start with a no-mark (Ack-ack). This lets him know it is an undesirable behavior. After that, I issue an alternative command, e.g. Sit. This teaches him a different behavior to use when he is excited.
If my dog complies, then he gets praised and gets a lot of attention. If he does not comply, then I follow-up by turning away and ignoring him.
If he escalates his behavior and jumps more or bites my clothing, then I calmly say Timeout and remove him to a timeout area.
Here is a bit more on the initial obedience training methods I used on my dogs-
http://shibashake.com/dog/how-i-trained-my-husky-puppy
We have a sign on our door to inform all guests that our dog is in training. We request that when a guest first enters the home they give him no eye contact, no touch and do not speak to him. I have tried this for approx 1 week and it has worked wonders. He has already gotten the idea to leave people alone when they come in. Sniffing is fine, but now excitement.
This is hard as our Shiba can be easily excited.
@MPG Narratives – Yeah consistency is the toughest part, especially when it involves a lot of other people. Most of dog training has more to do with people than with dogs. Good luck with Sassie!
@daydreamer13 – Thanks! Btw. love your profile picture. Also enjoyed reading your poems. That is one of the best things about HubPages – a lot of interesting and talented people. 😀
God help me, I put aside a whole atefornon to figure this out.
How is it going Maisyn? Hope you are seeing some results. 🙂
I’ve heard these techniques before and they really do work! I hope many people read this because there’s alot of very useful information here.
This is so useful thanks. Our dog Sassie is very excitable so I will definitely give the ‘ignore’ another try. We used this method when she started jumping but of course we didn’t keep it up. Consistency is the key.
Got to be consistent with the ignore the dog as well. Last thing you want to do is accidentally introduce a variable reward to jumping. That will make it that much harder to get rid of.
Makes it even harder because some dogs might not give up on jumping so quickly. So you’ll have to keep it up before they’ll give up on the behavior.
But, give them half a hope that it might work…sometimes the eternal optimism of dogs can be a two-edged sword.
One thing that helped with Wally and I is giving a simple cue he knows how to do (like sitting), when I turned back around. That way, he has an alternative, but incompatible behavior to offer when he wants to greet you (he can’t sit and jump at the same time). Then you can praise and give rewards – further strengthening that behavior.
I’m a big believer in correcting behavior you don’t like, but also giving a behavior you do like so the dog knows what to do, instead of just what not to do. I believe they understand it easier. In nature, there’s not much “not do” but instead “do this”. That do might be run away or hide, but it’s still “go hide” not “don’t get seen”.
Hey KBlover,
Very good point with the consistency and variable rewards. That is why some trainers suggest that if people do not follow your greeting instructions, then just leave. Otherwise it could undo all of your earlier training.
Also great suggestion with giving the dog an alternate command. That can sometimes be difficult though especially if the dog is already excited about meeting a new person who is ‘wrestling’ with him. 😀