How To Stop A Dog From Jumping Up

Your dog is sooo happy to see you whenever you come home.  She's missed you and thinks you're the best thing that's happened in her life.  It's understandable then, when she can't contain herself and jumps all over you when you step foot in the door.  And it doesn't have to be just you; she's very happy to see anyone who comes to visit her.  Understandable - yes, acceptable - no. 

Yes, it's a touching thing to witness when she's a puppy, but it becomes less cute when she grows into a full-sized dog.  You don't want muddy paw prints on your new pants, or dog hair and slobber on your shirt.  Jumping dogs are not just annoying, they can also cause damage by accidently scratching or bruising the person they jump on, and could possibly knock them down.  Dogs that jump up are scary to children as well as people who are not comfortable around dogs. 

The biggest reason why a dog jumps is she's happy to see you and wants to tell you so.  She wants your attention.  She is greeting you and because she loves you, she wants to be touched by you.  She's learned that jumping is the best way to do this.  Jumping on people is most often a learned behavior from puppyhood that has to do with attention-seeking.   You may have given your puppy attention by fussing over her and getting her even more excited when she jumped.  Then you gave her more attention by telling her to stop and pushing her back down.  Yelling at her to stop and touching her when she's jumping just reinforces the jumping behavior.

Another reason behind jumping comes from an inherent instinct in puppies to lick the muzzles of adult dogs.  This was reinforced if you let your puppy jump up and lick your adult face.

The best thing to do then, from the beginning, is to ignore your dog when you come home if she jumps.  Put your coat away and perhaps leave the room until your dog has calmed down.  When she is calm, you can then give her attention.  That way you are not rewarding her with attention for negative behavior.  Be careful though, if you fuss too much she might get excited and start jumping again.

To stop an older dog from jumping will require a bit of consistent training.  Have your command word ready; "huh uh" or "down" and put your hands behind your back so you won't be rewarding her with contact.  When she goes to jump, step back and turn around while using the command word.  Do this until the dog stops jumping.  When she stops you can give her all your attention and praise her for following the command. 

It's easiest to train a dog not to jump from the beginning, but it's not impossible to retrain a dog to stop jumping.  "Down" is an important command for your dog to learn so she doesn't hurt anyone and doesn't lose human friends who don't want to be around a dog with a bad habit.