Very eager dog.

[Picklepaige]

My dog, Maggie, (in my sig) is a 1 1/2 year old dalmation, lab, apbt, and pointer mix (we think) She is VERY energetic, and the main problem we have with her is constantly jumping on us. We don't worry about her knocking us over or anything, as she's not very big (only about 40 pounds) but it's embarrassing to have guests over and her jumping all over them. We've been going on more walks, and I've been taking her to the park. Do you think getting rid of some of that energy would help her any?

[adojrts]

Keeping her busy and burning of energy is always good for the mind and body of most dogs. It doesn't replace training, nor will it fix the problem. If you don't know how to train her, you can ask and I am sure you will get lots of advice.

Lynn

[houndlove]

For dogs that love to jump, there are a few ways you can approach it (and not all are mutually exclusive). Dogs do what works to get them what they want and jumping up is fulfilling her need for attention and closeness with people. It's working, she's getting it. You don't mind it but dogs don't really automatically generalize, this is okay with these people but not okay with these other people. It's all people and it's all potential attention and she's all about it. So for a little while, you're going to have to mind it. Everyone in your family is going to have to get on the same page that this beahvior is no longer okay.

So, what are some other ways that she can get attention and closeness that don't involve jumping up? And how can you make the jumping no longer work for that? That's the key to behavior modification. Thing A has always worked, so you make Thing A no longer work but now Thing B works wonderfully. What a lot of people with jumpers do is teach that sitting is a better way to get attention and closeness than jumping. Jumping must stop working, completely. If she jumps, you must turn away, face a wall, leave the room, cross your arms, go back out the door, whatever you need to do to withdraw all attention from her the second she starts to jump (and that includes talking to her, saying "no", anything that at all acknowledges her existance). Wait 30 seconds or so then try again--ask her to sit and if she does not, remove attention. If she does sit though, get down on her level, have a greeting, praise her, give her her favorite rewards. If she starts to pop back up again, remove attention again. Repeat, repeat repeat.

The thing with jumping is that if a few people still allow it, she will keep trying it. EVERYONE has to get with the program. Recruit a few close friends after you've practiced with her just with your family to come over and "stage" a greeting. Brief them on the protocol and allow her to practice with them, the same as she's been doing with you.

One thing to be aware of is the "extinction burst" phenomenon. Often when something that has been working very well for a dog stops working suddenly, the first thing they do is try harder. It's not that your training isn't working--it is. It's working so well that she's begun to realize that her usual plan isn't working any more and she's beginning to try new things such as jumping more, jumping higher, jumping harder. She's thinking, okay maybe THIS will work. Do not let it. Let her discover that sitting always works and jumping never does.

I said before there were a few ways to deal with it and that was one. Another is to put the jump on cue. Make jumping another command and just don't give the command unless you want to be jumped on. I did this with my coonhound and it worked well, but he was not an utterly compulsive jumper. With a serious jumper I'd first try Plan A, above, to get jumping out of their behavioral vocabulary entirely.