Remedies Needed for Jumping UP

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

My husband and I are about at our wit's end with Lucy's jumping up this past week. Ever since last week's Puppy Romp, where Lucy got TONS of attention for her jumping up on people, she's been just terrible. We cringed when we saw how much love and attention she got at the puppy romp when she'd jump up, knowing full well we'd have our work cut out for us. We turn away and ignore her, put out our hand in the stop-sign signal, say, "OFF", walk into her as she's jumping, nothing works! Lucy will even jump up with my back turned while cooking dinner. She starts puppy classes next week, but in the interim, are there any other tricks I can try? Thanks!!

[Noble Vestal Labradoodles]

you know... I thought about this all night and tried to figure out how and why so many doodle owners have this problem.

They do not adequately train their dogs. I hear and read, "I tried everything in the book and it didn't work"; and I know that just can not be true.

Teaching our dogs from an early age is the key!

To teach your dog not to jump on guests or people they meet teach them first to sit before being petted, no exception, everyone even mom and dad must get the fluffy pooch to sit before they pet the pooch. Once the dog is seated pet away and give treats and lots of praise.

Most people do not realize that when their puppy is little and it cute for them to stand up for love'ns what they do when they are 8 and 12 lbs puppies is not acceptable as 30 and 80 lbs adults.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

The tendency to jump has certainly been one of my greatest challenges with Guinness too. I've thought a lot about this because I never had to work so hard at it with my prior dogs (Lab, Golden and Dalmatian). They had their share of bad habits, but jumping was never a big issue. I think one of the key differences is that Guinness is a real "people" dog. He loves everyone. He craves attention and affection from everyone he meets. This is who he is. This is also what will probably make him a good therapy dog, but controlling that desire to jump up to get affection is critical. My trainer has been great in working with us on this. If he goes to jump I grab his collar, pull him off to the side, and place his feet on the floor. During this I say a firm "NO" (or in my case I use my "no sound"), immediately followed by SIT and GOOD BOY. Then and only then (when he's sitting calmly) does he get affection. A key to this is anticipating when the jumping behavior is likely to occur. If I know there are people coming over, I put a leash on him and everybody is warned that they cannot pet him unless he's in a calm sit. I also think consistency is key. When he was a new puppy I helped create the problem because I was so excited to see him when I came home that I gave him affection even when he was jumping. That was a mistake, but I just didn't realize the harm I was doing at the time. So, now we're in a good place with the jumping at home. I rarely have to remind him...he sits whenever someone comes to our house, because he knows that's when he'll get petted. For him it's all about the affection - that's his reward. He doesn't really need treats for this. I still run into problems in public with other people actually encourage the jumping. If someone gives him the opening, he'll jump. If I have any advice for new Doodle owners it would be to control the jumping from day one. It is hard because they are so adorable, but I know I made it more difficult for myself because I didn't handle it consistently in those first couple of months.

[Debb, Lucy & Oscar]

What a lot of great ideas! Yes, I'm afraid to say we were guilty of allowing the jumping in the early days, but it got rather old after the first week, so we started discouraging it.

We started the 'dancing' protocol last night and I have to say its working very well so far. Its all we're currently using for her jumping, nothing else. She's very hesitant to jump up now. You can see the wheels turning in her head as she ponders the dilemma of whether to jump and take the consequences or stay down. Staying down wins out about 80% of the time. We were amazed at how quickly this worked. Its safe to say Lucy HATES dancing! We immediately get down to her level and praise and reward her for having 4 on the floor, which she eats up like candy, so she's learning quickly what works to get what she wants.

Adina, you bring up a good point of teaching Lucy to HOW to greet people, and we will start working on that right away. Thanks for the suggestion. And thank you all for your input. I really appreciate it!

[Lorraine Bromley]

That's great. I am glad you didn't have to use the knee idea my trainer said to use. I never really had an issue with Neely. We used the off. But I think it helped that we were told not to greet the dog when we come into the house when they are all excited and we are too. We were told to ignore them completly until they settled down and sat waiting for attention and our arms were empty and he wasn't under foot. It was hard to get the whole family including the kids to do this. But I think this was the reason the off command worked so well as he new that he would get a big howdya do todoo when he sat down.