Jump to content

Advice on jumping up on people anyone?


Recommended Posts

Was wondering what good techniques to employ to train your pup not to jump up on people. I've had considerable fortune training Czar Demon on everything so far with this exception. Your input is much coveted and your advice much esteemed. Been on here a little while (since Feb this year) but by no means do I pretend to be any kind of expert, some things I know, and this I do not-just didn't want to take others advice around me here in my area about their ways, which would change my pup's perspective of me, because their ways include hitting and kneeing them, etc. I do not hit my dogs, I get them to listen without that, mostly with praise, love and rewards, sometimes with time outs-like when he is biting. There must be a way without using those 'tactics'. Thank you all in advance for the advice I know will come-boy, you guys are always quick! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The trainer I swear by :P says to block them with your hands when they try to jump up then they hit your hands and get the hint that they cant do that. Also he says you should get down on the floor to play with your dog to discourage jumping. The block thing has worked for me with my brothers dog and my cousins dog and I dont have a problem with Marius jumping up he tried to jump on somone once and I corrected him :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Attila, we have had the exact same problem from day one. Ozzy and Micah are stars with everything else, but the excitement of meeting people, be it at home or out on a walk, is just too much for them. I have posted about this often, got good advice, but nothing that helped with them :(

We had a family lunch at my house two weeks ago, my biggest fear was either of them jumping up against my parents, who are in their late seventies. My solution, and this may seem extreme to some (?) was a spray water bottle. I gave each of my parents one and told them to spray them if they came within jumping distance. Micah hates it, so she stayed just out of reach when she saw the bottle, but otherwise mingled beautifully with our guests - I tested it out on them prior to the lunch, so she knew what it was. Ozzy on the other hand loves water sprayed at him, so he immediately sits when he sees it, waiting for the spray - strange dog :) We had a great family day, without the huskies jumping up against anyone.

We have kept the bottles out, and if they jump up against me or my husband without being invited to, the bottles are within reach. It has helped so far, and hopefully "one day" the problem will no longer exist for us.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you Michelle, I always usually do play with him down on his level, but like Rosemary said, the excitement of people being over or meeting people usually overcomes him he's so friendly, and jumps up to say hi-its very embarrassing. I usually hold him by his harness (as he is quick and sneaks in a jump before we can react) or put him in our room:( We want him to interact with people, but for him its been jumping. Nah, waterbottles don't seem extreme to me, we've used it when raising kittens and they get to that ornery stage (the whole time :rofl:) and to keep them from getting on our countertops we've employed the use of water bottles. Thank you both for your advice and experience, glad to know I'm not the only one here with this problem:D He does great in everything else, we're just struggling with this one thing. We are happy with him, and he has displayed intelligence and learns very quickly as alot of people's do-they are an intelligent breed and make us people look like great trainers, when in actuality, its they are the quick learners, I can't take credit for most of what he knows, he's just quick. We will continue to work on this, tho

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One thing you can do when people come over is not to open the door before he sits. Then you can allow people to go in, but if he makes a move to get up, you can quickly push them out again and close the door so that he will eventually sit still until they are in your house. Well, obviously, I would do this with some friends that won't mind helping you lol, it might seem odd to do this with actual people. Assuming that he really wants to greet the visitors, he should make the connection between getting up and the visitors going out.

In my opinion, it's much easier to stop the jumping if you have this kind of control over the dog; if he runs to the door and starts jumping on people right away then he will be so excited that hardly anything you'll say/do will have an impact.

Another thing I do is just "body block" ours from visitors. Once we've asked him to sit and brought the visitors in, well at some point he has to be released from the sit. So to stop him from jumping you can just step between him and the visitor and say a sharp "ahah". And I always encourage visitors to pay lots of attention to him when he is sitting/behaving nicely.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another method with visitors. (but it takes time and training)

when you or a visitor comes in get them to sit and have a treat in your hand.

The idea is that if they sit when a visitor comes in they get a treat. (and then pet/cuddle)

Soon they should automatically sit when someone comes in . . . expecting a treat and a cuddle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are several methods you could use such as spraying them with water when they jump up, sticking your knee out so they hurt themselves when they jump up, only ever praising them when all four paws are on the floor, etc, but the best way I've found was shown to me by the dog trainer I'm shadowing and I've had a chance to practice it on some very heavy pawed, large breed dogs including a neapolitan mastiff, cane corsos etc, and it definately works. Put the dog on a lead with the lead attached to its collar (semi-slip collar would be beneficial here). Have one person holding the lead and one person standing in front of the dog. The person standing in front of the dog should then start encouraging it to jump up at them; as soon as the dog tries to jump up the person holding the lead should pull the dog back so that none of his paws ever touch the person. Try this a few times and if at any point the dog hessitates instead of jumping straight up when encouraged give a BIG praise. You can also try to generalise the dog's response by having the person leave and come back, or by bringing in an entirely new person so that it gets excited and repeating the steps above. If you use this method to teach your dog not to jump up not only would it stop the dog performing this behaviour when it meets people and gets excited etc, but it would also stop it happening if someone who doesn't know the dog tries to encourage it up - we all know how annoying it is when a stranger does things like that as it can backtrack any training attemps made on behavioural issues like this :rolleyes: This method would prevent that because it is exactly what you have been trying to train against (and gives you precious seconds to scold the stranger for encouraging the dog to jump up!).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

How good is he with sit/stay? It's something we can work on while you're at camp, if you'd like, since he'll be meeting a lot of new people, many of whom are quite familiar with huskies! Have him sit and stay, and we can stay just out of reach until he is. When he's doing as you asked, perhaps paying attention to a particularly good treat (need to remember my salmon treats that weekend!), then the person can come up and greet him as he's sitting...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A comment here. I've often used the approach of "kneeing" but the object is to get your knee up *before* the dog gets to it. He runs into a raised knee not you actively "kneeing" your friend. A small difference but a major impact (oops, no pun intended).

Having others around to work with really helps, but where I am I have to resort to learned solitary exercises.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My trainer states that this can be accomplished by introducing the command 'place'. Each and every time a visitor comes the husky is put in a place (can be its bed, sitting beside the door, anywhere as long as you are consistent). Eventually, you can open a door and let visitors in without such an exuberant greeting.

If you are talking out in the open or places other than your home, you need to teach that sit means sit until you are released. Ryn loves to give people exuberant greetings, but she knows that in order to be given the freedom to greet anyone, she must greet them on my terms. This requires sitting until she is released. This is also a good time to introduce the 'settle' command.

One thing I found when working with Ryn on this is that everyone has to be on the same page. This includes any and all persons your husky is greeting. They must not give her any attention. No pats, no verbal greeting, no eye contact. I found that when people ignored her, she would look to me for explanation and/or permission to greet someone.

When @sutsibe and I walk, many people want to greet the dogs. Ryn is most content waiting for her turn and will sit back and wait until I give her permission to greet/meet. She must greet people in a gentle manner. If not, she is removed and not allowed greeting/meeting. She pretty much does it on her own now.

No knees, no water bottles just simple commands were used. I was fortunate.

This is not to say that I am not greeted with a full husky body slam when I get home....but I'm just as anxious to greet her as she is me, so for us and I reiterate.........For the two of US, this is an acceptable greeting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you Gigi, that would be great maybe to try that, then we can train like that at home:up: Yeah, know what you mean, Al-our worthless property manager kneed our pup when he was just 10 weeks old-fortunatley for him, he missed our pup and put his hand to his back like he was Fred Sanford feigning some malady. Thats one problem, Becky, is when we meet people on the sidewalks in our small town that want to see him, he is so eager to greet them or their dogs that he jumps-always. I just reassure them that he's very friendly and means no harm and is just excited, but that only goes so far if he'd hurt someone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That water bottle idea sounds really good we'll give that a try! Zeus doesn't jump up on us but everyone else he does because he just gets so excited about meeting new people. One of the issues we have is that people encourage the jumping as opposed to listening to our instructions with interacting with him because "Oh we're dog people we love dogs." So as he jumps up they pet and give him attention as opposed to not giving him attention until he calms down. We got to the point that the minute we let him in he has to sit on his bed and behave with us, but with everyone else its like it goes out the door because people get excited about meeting him as well.

What is the best way to talk to people about consistency of training? I actually have more issues getting them to understand I do the dog lol!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've had the same problem with Bella jumping up on people when they greet. It's taking forever(don't mean to discourage you!) but I can see the progress she's making in the 5 months I've had her. She's starting to calm down quicker when greeting others and she's not jumping on them as much. It's been frustrating because a lot of people say they don't care if she jumps up on them. Well guess what...I DO!! If it weren't for so many people not listening to me, she might have made faster progress. In the beginning, I would step on the leash...making her have to lie down to greet people. She was REALLY crazy at the time and it seemed to help. As I've spent more time with her training and the more people we greet, she's making progress. To help out recently, I tell people to wait before they pet her. She has to sit, lie down, then roll over onto her back before people are allowed to rub her belly. This works for her because the LOVES her belly rubbed!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The training advise that Becky has given is the same approach as I would use.

Another method is using a sit and stay command followed by a go greet to allow them to say hi to your guests.

Its the same concept as the place command just a different wording and can be taught the same way. If they move from their "place" or "sit" "stay" then you go back to the beginning to regain their focus. I would start this without having anyone behind the door so you can build them up to it gradually and set them up for success. Then once you have got to a point of opening the door and they "stay" until you release them then you can start adding someone coming through the door. Again start this with someone from the household or someone they know already. Just keep progressing gradually at the dogs pace, then you are more likely to see the positive outcome.

As all training its going to take time, patience and consistency but stick to it and you can get success.

Also if my dogs jump at me or a member of the household, we turn our back to them with our arms folded until they stop jumping up and then greet them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thats one problem, Becky, is when we meet people on the sidewalks in our small town that want to see him, he is so eager to greet them or their dogs that he jumps-always. I just reassure them that he's very friendly and means no harm and is just excited, but that only goes so far if he'd hurt someone.

Ryn was the same. I found that most people who want to see your husky are also willing to wait until he/she has calmed down. It's a better experience for them as well. Quickly explain that the husky is 'in-training' and if they'd be willing to wait a moment, they could really assist in the training. Most people get excited (for lack of a better word) to be able to assist in the training of this beautiful dog that they so want to meet.

Meanwhile, you get the husky to 'settle' or whatever your command is. Once the husky understands that it's not allowed to greet anyone until calm, (which they quickly do!) it becomes habit very, very quickly. Ryn now sits at my side, or sometimes slightly in front of me, if she's very excited to meet someone, then looks for that permission to greet.

The trick is if you release the dog to greet and it begins to jump, you start over (while the individuals wait to meet the dog). Settle before greeting. Trust me, after a couple times of having to wait, the husky learns very quickly to be calm in greeting others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy , along with dressing your husky as a unicorn on the first Thursday of each month