No more dogpark until he stops jumping?

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

Another jumping problem here.

Auggie is a jumper. He jumps on people at Home Depot, at my work, at the dog park. He sees our neighbor smoking in their backyard and jumps up next to the wooden fence so that he can see above the fence. Our trainer could not come near him because he would jump on her.

The only progress we've made: he does not jump on me or my DH, and there is 90% less jumping at the trainer. But anywhere else, it's a disaster. When he meets people, he is so excited that he whines and wants to jump. It does not matter if people are facing him or not, if they are sitting on a bench texting. We go to a dog park and he runs around jumping on everyone. I run after him yelling OFF. Then he plays with other dogs and once in a while comes back and jumps on people. We don't have much visitors at our house, so the only training I can do is with strangers. Our trainer said that perhaps no more dog parks until he learns not to jump (since there is no way for me to control his behavior).  We are using clicker training. Any ideas what I should do when he is off leash in a park?

[Louise Cyr]

I feel your pain! Mykka (pronounced Meeka). Is 8 months now, and is very, very good. Except for the jumping. Not me or my husband, just everybody else. Thank God she's just a medium size. We have been wintering in Florida, and I have been working on this everyday for three months. Progress? Not really. I know she needs to learn a solid down stay, but that takes more practice than a few months I'm thinking. And it's hard when you're dealing with strangers. I almost to the point of thinking that the jumping will cease when she attains a certain maturity, regardless of training. I also would like help with this.

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

I remember my older one used to jump on people as well. But not this much and then it suddenly stopped even before he turned 1. He earned his CGC when he was 10 months old, which is in a month for Auggie.....there is no way I'm going to even try to pass with Auggie.

[Julie and Charlie]

I have this issue too, except not at the dog park- everywhere. I plan to tackle it when the weather is nicer and we can meet more people outside when he is on leash. I am thinking he's not going to be allowed to run around sans leash or line without knowing how to greet people appropriately, especially children. 

[Marnie, Stanlee's Mom]

Stanlee turned a year on Saturday and we are still dealing with this issue but not as much as we used to. Stan is a jumper but we've pretty much narrowed it down to me, my daughter's best friend, my son's fiance, and my 76 year old mother.  (Nice, huh?)  We have found that by giving Stanlee one of his "woobies" to hold in his mouth, he tends to jump less.  His "woobie" is a square of fleece with a knot tied in one of the corners; we have a lot of them scattered around the house so pretty much at any given minute he can be handed a woobie to stop whatever behavior we are trying to curb.  (This works for his mouthiness as well!)  We're still working on the sit and greet but between his ADD, uncontrolable excitement AND stinkin' cuteness, we haven't been as successful as I'd hoped but we are most definitely seeing progress!

 

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

Yeah, and Auggie would not jump into the car....go figure.

[Marnie, Stanlee's Mom]

The first time Stanlee jumped into the car without my help it startled me so badly I dropped my coffee. 

[Adina P]

Hmm...I would probably avoid the dog park until you have had a chance to practice this, successfully in other less intense places.  And if you did take him to the dog park at that point, you'd want to go with just him (no Monty) so that you could follow him closely and do your training as taught by the trainer.  I think it's fine to find strangers, in a park, etc to work with you.  You'd be surprised how strangers feel kinda special being asked to help.  Visitors aren't as useful as strangers because they are there to see YOU.  Plus Auggie is so cute I'm sure he'd attract helpers easily!

How do you work with him on jumping so far?  Do you work on a solid sit stay instead of jumping?  Obviously a solid sit stay isn't useful when he's running around a dog park.  Do you use any corrections or reprimands or anything to make it UNdesireable to jump on people?   I really don't know how to teach NO JUMPING in the general sense (no jumping up wildly 3 inches from me, no jumping up and touching the fence).

[Marnie, Stanlee's Mom]

Adina, what a great idea to ask strangers!  No one at the house wants to help any more as the "fun" wore off long ago but you're right, strangers come up all the time and ask to pet him so maybe I'll try asking THEM for a little something in return!  AWESOME idea!

[Adina P]

Strangers are a much better test too because they are a novel person.  People in the house...well dogs just get used to them and the practice. 

Put a vest on him or be prepared to stand between him and them as you explain what you need them to do (which is really NOTHING at first).  You just want them to stand there while you have him walk by...then stop and sit next to them.  Then have your pup in a sit stay and have the person walk by slowly, stop next to him and walk away.  Next have them stop and BRIEFLY pet him and walk away.  Just keep making it more and more involved (perhaps NOT that same day but stay at the same level with many different people) as he succeeds consistently at holding a sit stay. 

[Marnie, Stanlee's Mom]

I'm actually printing these instructions right now - and THANKS!

[Adina P]

Somewhere in this group I have even better, more detailed instructions.  I don't know if it was in an old sit stay discussion or an old not-jumping-on-people discussion...?

[Jarka, Monty & Auggie]

That's how we have started practicing with our trainer. Last Sunday she asked a couple of people from the next session to approach him while he is on leash with me and click and treat when all 4 are on the ground. If he starts jumping up, they would walk away. He got it after a few attempts (one lady had hot dogs). He does calm down quickly when no other new distractions are introduced. Perhaps I will work on this technique in our dog park as well. We meet our friend three times a week in the morning, usually nobody else is in there. He jumps on her as soon as she gets to the park. I also need to take him to work with me more often so that he gets used to all the people (I work at a college campus so even on our walk from the parking lot to my office building we meet a lot of people. They don't necessarily want to pet him, but I've noticed he got really excited the first time around and was walking much calmer later on).