Overly excited greetings

[Dexter Doodle]

Dexter is a mgd and is getting close to 6 months. We scheduled his preop appointment this morning. We have one more lesson with our trainer and I feel like we made so much progress, but we still struggle with how excited he gets over greetings.

When we have a visitor ring the doorbell, we put Dexter on place. He does pretty well with staying there until released. When he is released he runs to the new guest and knows jumping is not allowed. Instead he falls to the ground, but is in such crazy mode that he looks like a breakdancer! It doesn't seem to matter how long we leave him on place. His crazy reaction is always the same. He will go up to each new visitor and do it until he has met everyone. Guests usually crack up as they see how hard he is trying to do the right thing. For me, I just think of how I have never seen other dogs act this way, but I have to admit I have had very limited contact with puppies and even adult dogs.

Again, we are working on the same issues when he is on leash, but it is even worse as he does try to jump sometimes too. After a minute or less he usually calms and listens to commands again, but his initial reaction is always crazy. I just got back from a walk and a neighbor who is also a dog walker told me that he really thinks Dexter is well behaved and trying to listen, but has a hard time controlling his puppy energy. Then told me that his lab was like a puppy for 6 years. Sigh!


I will continue to work with Dexter, but am curious as to how much of this is really age? Does getting neutered help some of this over excitement? Any tips for creating calm with new people? I am hoping that we are hitting the peak of adolescent energy!

[Melanie, Wookie and Dr. Watson]

I have no advice, but I can commiserate and offer a little hope or crush your hope depending on how you look at it.  At 3 mine is just now calm enough to handle 99% of greetings like a lady, but we still have to be on her like a hawk.  The exceptions are my mother and my husband's mother - all training goes right out the window for grandmas! Standing, jumping, spinning, play bowing, wiggling - she's unstoppable.  Of course both of her grandmas encourage it, so I've given up to an extent when it comes to them.  I'd say her puppy energy peak was around 6 months, but it was still quite high till 2 and she's only just now starting to mellow a bit at 3.  Even now though every person who meets her says she "acts like a puppy" which usually in context means she's acting like a weirdo.

[Julie, Eloise & Beasley]

OMD, this describes my Eloise to a tee!  (It's my stepmom and my sister for her, though.)  I relate to this 100%. Too funny!  :)

[Rosemary (Ro) and Enzo]

The good news is he sounds completely normal.  In fact, even better....probably able to control himself better than most 6 month olds.  We've all been there, in various degrees of excitability.  Continued training and age will help.  I wouldn't count too much on the neuter being a huge factor. 

  When we meet someone on the street or in a store, Enzo is put into a sit-stay.  If she starts to jump ( ours biggest hurdle ( no pun intended) to conquer with her) I ask that the person NOT pet her until she sits and calms herself.  Letting the leash touch the ground next to her, and kneeling or standing on it, helps them not to jump.  If there are children involved...which really sets her off, I ask that only one at a time pet her...If she is calm, then I let more than one approach her.

[Pat, Mary & Cooper]

We also had to work on that greeting issue with our Cooper , we did use clicker training and our dog trainer gave us a tip for new people coming at the door and don't really get why you ask them not to pay attention to the dog when jumping and acting all excited.The response we get is often: oh that's ok , I have a dog as well or I don't mind...that is not helping all the effort put in to it ,so she had me make greeting flash cards to hand out to people as they come in ,they could read : we are in training with our dog we ask that you do not give him attention when jumping....etc her point was that by the time visitors read the card they are not giving attention to the excited dog and it gave me time to settle him down. I did think it was weird at first but it worked!

[Sheree Small]

I think it sounds like you are doing great at 6 months. We have 3 dogs so a doorbell equals mayhem. Our 9 mo doodle is a jumper and we do try to have people not pay attention til she is "4 on the floor". Often, the visitors think she is so cute, they aren't very good at helping with the training. I do as Ro says when I am out and have my foot on the leash limiting the jump. But it sounds like you are doing great and with time it will get better. Sheree

[Rosemary (Ro) and Enzo]

LOL: we also use the " four on the floor" terminology!

[Julie, Eloise & Beasley]

It sounds like Dexter is doing pretty great for his age - especially since he's able to keep himself on the floor, even if he is breakdancing. ;)  Eloise turned 3 last week, and she's only stopped jumping up during greetings since last fall.  She struggles to contain her excitement like so many of these guys do, and I've not been as assertive as I should be when asking strangers to comply with the "all four on the floor" rule before acknowledging her.  If I had a dollar for every time someone said "oh it's okay, my dog does that, and she's so cute" or "it's the golden in her"...!  Ellie knows she's not supposed to jump on people, and I could see she was trying to control herself but it was so much harder for her when she was younger.  I used the "step on the leash" approach whenever possible, too, and withholding attention worked in certain situations (but it's sometimes hard to ignore the jumping kangaroo, and my natural reaction is correction - even though I know it was negative attention, which was still attention.  Ignoring worked like a charm with our trainer, lol.)

My puppy Beasley is just over 8 mos, and she seems to be grasping "no jump" much more quickly than Eloise (except when she sees certain people).  Besides the good suggestions everyone else here has provided, it also helps when the greeters to stay calm (no shrill "oh my gosh, look at the puppy!" or other excitement coming at the puppy, which I know is just so against most human's nature, ha).  This really keeps the puppy from escalating, too.  It sounds like you're doing great with his training so far, and it will get better with age.  (Just what age is anyone's guess, lol!)