Expert Tips to Keep Your Dog from Jumping

Teach your dog a greeting rule, such as “keep your front paws on the floor.” It’s far safer, more polite, and gives your pet an alternative way to welcome you home and earn your attention. These 10 tips will help you teach your dog appropriate greeting behavior. Soon, your dog will know exactly how to say “hi” to humans.

Ask Guests and Strangers to Follow Your Greeting Rule

Don’t be afraid to speak up and be clear with guests and strangers about what your dog should do before they say “hello.” While your dog is still learning, ask people to completely ignore your dog unless you say it’s okay. And try to avoid strangers until your dog has mastered greetings with friends and family who you know will cooperate. Instead, use a “watch me” cue or distract your dog with a hand touch or toy until the stranger has walked past.

Prevent Your Dog From Jumping on Guests

You aren’t the only one reinforcing your dog’s behavior. Other family members, guests, and even strangers on the street can all reward jumping if you aren’t careful. To prevent that, use management techniques like leashing your dog so they can’t approach. Even better, send your dog to their place such as a mat or bed, or put your dog in their crate so they are nowhere near the door. You can also use a baby gate to block the front hall.

Keep Greetings Low-Key While Your Dog Is Learning

Because your dog is so happy to see you, it’s hard for them to control their excitement. It takes a lot of emotional self-control to resist the natural urge to jump, and instead obey the new greeting rule. Make it easier for your dog by keeping greetings low-key. Dogs can read our emotions, so if you’re riled up, they will be too. Instead, stay calm and quiet, even when you praise. Once your dog starts to catch on, you can increase your enthusiasm bit by bit until you can show just as much excitement as they do.

Don’t Put Your Knee Up When Your Dog Jumps

You may have heard that putting your knee up to block your dog’s chest as they jump will eliminate the behavior. But as discussed above, kneeing can be interpreted as attention or a wrestling game by some rough and tumble personalities causing the opposite effect. But even worse, for most dogs it will create distrust and erode the human-canine bond. After all, your dog is simply trying to say “hello” and you are punishing them in response. You might even injure them. If your dog doesn’t trust you, that can lead to other behavior problems such as not coming when called.

Don’t Grab or Push Your Dog Away

Remember that your dog is jumping to get your attention. And even a negative response, like grabbing your dog, holding their paws, or pushing them away, is still attention and therefore will reward the jump. Therefore, instead of reducing the frequency, this can cause more jumping in the long run. And worse, for many dogs, getting physical like that can be misinterpreted as initiating roughhouse play. They will come back jumping harder and stronger thinking it’s all part of the game.

Always Reward Your Dog for Proper Greeting Behavior

Your dog will learn proper greeting behavior faster if their actions immediately impact your attention – front feet on the floor gains attention and jumping makes it go away. That means you should always reward your dog if they follow your greeting rule. Never withhold your attention when your dog’s feet finally touch the floor. You might be irritated, particularly if you just tolerated five solid minutes of jumping, but don’t let that impact your response. It will confuse your dog if the rule isn’t consistently reinforced.

Remove Attention When Your Dog Jumps

On the flip side, the only way to stop jumping is to stop rewarding it. Never reinforce a behavior you want to eliminate. If your dog jumps on you, quickly take away what they want – your attention. Try turning your back or calmly walking away so your dog realizes jumping has the opposite effect to what they intended. But as soon as your dog is four on the floor again, turn back and quietly praise and pet them. This will help your dog see their behavior as a switch that turns your attention on and off.

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