Stopping Your Dog From Jumping On People

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Today we have a guest post from trainer Dave Cugno:

Dogs jumping on people when entering the house.

A very common behavioral issue that dog owners deal with is their dog jumping on people when they come in the house. You can stop this from happening in two steps.

Why do dogs jump?

Jumping is a side effect of being hyper and is usually a learned behavior owners unknowingly condition in to their dogs. From the time a dog is a puppy, the first thing people do when coming in the house is make a big fuss and get the dog excited while at the same time giving affection.

Over time, this excitement becomes an association the dog gets with the door. Before you know it, when there is a knock at the door or the doorbell rings the dog’s emotional state becomes hyper and from that hyper state comes the jumping. Usually the dog’s main goal when jumping is to get affection and that desire for affection can be used to fix the issue.

Step One

I tell my clients to have every person that comes in the house ignore the dog for the first five minutes. No petting, no eye-contact and no speaking to the dog. Ignoring the dog is only the first step…

Step Two

The second step is to wait until the dog calms down and at that point give affection. This will recondition your dog to associate calmness with the door. In addition, by giving affection after the dog calms down, it will learn that being calm gets more affection. Since your dog’s goal of jumping is affection, your dog will learn that by being calm it can get so much more!

About the author: Having spent almost 20 years refining his craft, Dave Cugno has become the leading authority in the Philadelphia region on dog behavior. With a focus on the development of the dog/human relationship, Dave’s technique fosters a happy and stable state of mind for your dog from which all good behavior follows.