Puppy Care

At the start you may feel that when your Puppy jumps up, he’s so cute. But it ceases to be funny when your full-size dog jumps up on people with dirty paws – quite embarrassing. So I encourage you to train your Puppy or dog not to do this while he is still young. It’s a big mistake to encourage it and then later have to try to stop the behavior.

The most common time for jumping up is when someone enters your house or when you come across someone while you’re walking your dog. So, it’s a good idea to teach your dog to sit in these circumstances.

In some cases jumping up can be your dog trying to become the dominant one, but in most cases the behavior is just a greeting. Other problem behaviors can be created by dominance and this must be prevented. It’s best if you position yourself as the alpha dog, the dominant one.

You should appreciate the principle of positive reinforcement. This can be tasty treats or praise and affection. It’s important that you stop giving any reward for this behavior. So instead of giving your dog a lot of attention as he jumps up, you ought to give him no attention as long as he is excited. Don’t give him any eye contact.

In contrast to this, when he is calm and has all four feet on the ground you can show him affection.

Hopefully, your dog may already sit on command. If so it’s a good idea to get him to sit as your enter the house or as guests arrive. When he does sit, reward him with a affection or a tasty treat. If you haven’t already trained him to sit, you should work on this and other obedience Training. It’s much easier to start solid obedience Training in specific short sessions, away from any distractions. Keep them fun for your dog.

You need to get the cooperation of everyone who your dog comes into contact with, so that they don’t upset all your work. Get them to agree be calm and not excited when they meet your dog. They should not give eye contact to your dog.

In the beginning, you may want to put your dog in another room when visitors arrive, so that the whole situation at the door is avoided.

I hope that this helps with the dog jumping up problem. Read more about other problems in dog behavior such as aggressive dogs.