One of my dogs when you are not looking jumps on the sofa and he has done it twice before, he gets told off when he does it and is made to get down. We don't like dogs on the furniture and we have never encourage it. We have a lounge & dining room as one room and my husband was watching TV one end and our spare sofa which we bring forward when our family come to visit was at the other end. I'm on the internet in another room and when I came into the dining room he was laying on the sofa the cheeky b***er. I didn't say anything to him and I didn't motion him to get off with my hand I just stood and stared at him. He knew it was wrong because he slowly got off, he does tend to be sly. Other than telling him get down in a firm voice how can I break him off this as don't want my other dog copying.

Confine him away from rooms with sofas if you can't supervise or put a throw on them to protect them if he does get up.

Sofas are comfortable and give a vantage point do unless expressly told at that point any dog will get up on them surely?

Mine are not supposed to go on sofa but I always found a warm spot there with innocent dogs on floor if I left the room.

We had a 2 and a 3 seater settee in the sitting room. We decided to get some new ones, looked round showrooms and decided to get a new 3 seater with recliner at each end for us and kept the old one with a throw over it for Zuma.
He used to get on either of the old ones but first time he got on the new one told him NO and encouraged him onto 'his' ... 'good boy' and he has only ever got on ours twice..........look at him.........ahem,  and he hops off and gets on  his own

I have leather sofas and they have throws on them but I got so tired of having to straighten them every time the dogs got off and Roscoe in particular would pull the throw off the arm, put his chin on the arm and leave slobber on it that I stopped them from getting on full stop by putting all the seat cushions up. Had them up for about 2 months but it worked and none of them get on the sofas now.

My friend lies stools on the sofas when she goes out

I just kept saying off and getting them off at the same time. They soon got the hang of it

Thanks everyone.

I love Barbara's warm spot and innocent dogs. 

> Other than telling him get down in a firm voice how can I break him off this

Is there any reason why you don't want to give him a verbal instruction?  Most dogs like the sofa, allowed or not, so it makes sense to train the necessary commands from a very early age.  I use 'up' for getting onto something (sofa, bench, chair, back of the car etc - basically anything that requires a step or jump) and I teach 'off' to get down from that place.  You can use any low, safe surface for training if you don't want to use the sofa but do arm yourself with lots of treats both as a lure if needs be for the early stages then as a reward.  Remember that being on the sofa is special so you are going to have to give nice rewards if you want him to shift!

We never used to let our dogs sleep on the sofa as a regular thing but our youngest managed to win us over.  However, I still make sure they only get on when there is a suitable cover in place and I have certain bits of furniture they are NEVER allowed on.  They seem to learn the rules pretty quickly but you do need to teach them how to get off safely (if puppies) and never give in once you've asked.  I often have to ask mine to budge whilst I straighten the covers so they are all pretty used to getting off then getting back on as instructed :)

If you are going to be very firm about the sofa then it might pay to give your dog a new special surface on which to sleep instead.  Try creating a raised bed if you can.  If you get it right he'll probably not require much too much additional training!!

He's not a puppy and he's started doing this in middle age he's 10. Actually thinking about it he started doing this when their position in the pack changed he was the under dog until my eldest girl who is now aged 14 dropped lower. He now eats his food a lot faster than he used to and will eat out of her bowl and try to steal food from her where at one time he wouldn't have dared because if she growled at him he would back off. We don't allow him to take her food obviously.

I have now put two children's chairs on the sofa and I hope that will stop him.

If the chairs don't work, you could try tinfoil, I've never used it myself, but it is often mentioned as a means to keep dogs off as they dislike the feeling of the foil.
Or there is a device on the market for sofa's that sets off an alarm if it feels any pressure.

Thanks Celli. What's the device called?

I had a neighbour with 2 Newfies who solved the problem by getting the dogs their own sofa, everyone was happy and the dogs stuck to their own sofa. This solution does involve the dogs getting their own way but it protects the furniture you don't want ruined.