Dog Jumping

Photo by Marcelo Brito Filho

Many dog owners find that their dogs get overly excited and jump all-over people, and other pets when people come through the front door. While you yourself may not mind that your dog jumps all over you, others might, and depending on the size of your dog there is always the risk of injury. Truth be told, allowing your dog to jump on you, or anyone else is not a good practice for many reasons. For one, the dog is expressing dominant behavior, secondly allowing this escalation of excitement can lead to anxiety, and thirdly, there is always the risk of injury to the person/animal being jumped on, and even the dog that's doing the jumping.

Teach Your Dog Not to Jump on People

One of the first things your need to do is establish yourself as the pack leader if you have not already done so. If you need help with this you can refer to Be the Pack Leader: Use Cesar's Way to Transform Your Dog . . . and Your Life; Until you are regarded as pack leader, or alpha by your dog, training him in any way is close to impossible. Remember, dogs that are in a dominant state of mind do not listen. They are the boss, and will do as they please. However, if you are Alpha already, you just need to show your dog what is appropriate behavior in different domestic situations. In dog world, there are no doorbells, so your dog just doesn't know what is, or isn't an appropriate reaction unless you show him what to do.

There are several methods to try, depending on what is the trigger that sets your dog into that excited, out of control state-of-mind. For some dogs it is the sound of the doorbell, for others hearing a car pull up, while other dogs only go into a frenzy when someone walks through the front door.

After determining your dogs trigger you need to desensitize them to that trigger. For example, if it is the sound of the doorbell, you need to go outside your home, ring the bell, and come in as many times as possible. Do not make your entrances an event, when you come in ignore the dog. Have other members of your family do this as well, and if you can get a friend or someone else that doesn't live at the house to do this, it would also greatly aid the situation. Once your dog realizes that the sound of the doorbell is a non-event, he/she will become much calmer about it.

 Now, when I train my dogs, I always make sure to "claim" my territory by blocking them from entering the space I do not want them to enter. For example, if the door rings, and my dogs start bolting towards it. I stop dead in my tracks, turn towards them and block them from moving past me. I do not even touch them when I do this, I just get in their way. Then I take a step or two towards them, to show my dominance, and force them to back up. I repeat as many times as necessary until they realize that this is my territory and they can not enter it until I say so. I don't just do this with the foyer or entry hall. I use this technique throughout the day while doing other tasks like cooking, or cleaning. The Stay command, can also be used in this situation, or even a combination of the two.  If I see my dog is particularly excited, I will block first, and then say stay. Only when he is completely calm do I proceed to the front door to open it. If I notice that he starts to charge towards my guest, I block and say stay again.

All people that come to my home are told ahead of time that they should ignore my dogs when they first arrive, and that it may take me a few moments to answer the bell. None of them mind this, in fact, I think they all appreciate the fact that my two Shih Tzus and whatever rescue I have at the moment does not jump all over them, particularly if they are also bringing their children along for a visit.

Now, there are many different ways of training your dog not to jump on people when they come to your door. This is the particular method that I use. However, Animal Planet has a wonderful free video on their site, called Jumping: How to Teach Calm Behavior, that is also very effective, and also goes into more specifics about dogs jumping on furniture, etc. You can view it by going here: http://animal.discovery.com/beyond/?bctab=search

The only method I do not condone, or recommend is the Kneeing Technique that a lot of trainers recommend. I find that Calm, Assertive Training methods always work best, and I don't think that Kneeing your dog in the chest is the best way to show dominance. Too many breeds can react very badly to that sort of training, like Dobermans for example, and many smaller dogs could easily get hurt, not to mention the fact that if you are standing it would be difficult to knee a small dog in the chest as opposed to their face or throat. It's just too risky, and in my opinion, inhumane.