Hello

We have a 5 month old male Dobe who we adore, and we know that dogs will be dogs and thats why we have them and love their little ways and habits, however he has developed the habit of jumping up every time he is pleased to see you or when you enter a room or other people come to the house (a very common dog habit though I guess!!:D), but we feel may not really be appropriate behaviour - especially when he is fully grown and meeting an older person who may not be able to withstand his strength :D!!! 

We have had him since he was 8 weeks old and he has only really just started doing this since about a month ago.  A couple of months before this he just seemed to jump around on the spot in front of us - gazelle-like - rather than jumping up with his front paws on us.  When he started his "gazelle-like" jumping we simply ignored him by folding our arms and turning away from him to show it was undesirable, then praising when he stopped (trying to get the all important timing for rewarding right!).  However a few kilos heavier and a couple of months later and he seems to have learnt he can get himself nearer to us by jumping up and putting his front paws up on us.  We wondered if there is a good positive training technique we could use to stear him away from this habit in the best possible way that he will understand.  He is very food-orientated which makes training great, and he loves to please with doing his sit, stay and down etc for treats.  We take him to weekly puppy classes too and he is always excellent with his work there and frequently gets picked to demonstrate to new people in the class, so we know he will respond if we teach him the correct way.  Any help or tips with this one and dobes in particular?

Thanks in advance as always!

Mandy

Hi Mandy

I have some eight week old pups here and wondered when I have visitors why they jump all over them and don't do the same to me.

I think it is because when I first enter their area I ignore them - I am looking our for mess to clear up or putting down food or picking up bowls, bedding for washing etc.  As soon as I pay them any attention they recripriocate with great enthusiasm but if I ignore them, although they may be around my feet they don't jump up.

If you see your boy coming and he is going to jump up try to get a sit command in before he starts his bounce, if he has already started then step out of the way so he misses you and give a command.  You might also like to teach him to jump up on command only.  My girls know that if I hold out my arms in a sort of Russian Dancer's position they can jump up on them - this keeps me cleaner.  If I turn sideways or have my arms down they stay at floor level.  The more consistent you are the faster he will learn - and this is much easier to type than to do as I have it coming as I am keeping a pup!

Hi Christine

Thanks very much for your reply.  It makes total sense as you say, to ignore him on entering the room, and we have tried this and it does work when you have already been in the house for a while and have got over the initial greeting then you can just come and go from room to room.  However, my partner gets home earlier from work than me and as he has our boy with him all day, when I come through the door to try and get to my partner first, I see this charging little dobe come towards me and its BAM! :D Then its like trying to get past a rugby tackle of jumping to get to the next room, trying my best to "ignore" him on the way!  So it doesn't seem to work when I get in initially as my boy is so pleased to see me he can't wait to jump on me (even though I don't show him any attention, he just gets to me too easily!).  I think your technique of giving a sit command could be very good to try.  I will also try to step out of his pathway and tell him to sit and then give him a treat when he does, so he can relate to the good behaviour and reward.  Also very interesting to read about training him to jump up on command, I think we will try this too.

Incidentally - when you gave me advice on training him to ask to out to the toilet - this has worked brilliantly!  He now goes by the back door and "asks" to go out every time!  So very successful there.  Each time he started barking we just said "do you want to go out" and then took him straight out and he got the hang of it very quickly - so thanks again for that one!

Mandy

Hi Mandy

Pleased to hear I am useful for something - even if it is only teaching a dog to ask to go to the toilet :D

The small things like that can make the biggest differences!! :D :D

One thing I do with pups that do that and what I did with my Doberman when he tried doing that, which he didn't do excessively was to try to position him or you (whatever) so that he is standing not facing you, but sideways to you and then bend over and put your arm gently around him to keep him standing crosswise to you and against your legs like a hug.... and start patting him that way and greeting him. (I have a hard time coming home from somewhere and ignoring my dogs....not natural for me to greet someone like that. LOL) But, if he's sideways/crosswise and you're holding him kind of like that, he can't very well jump up on you because you're not in front of him. Then after a few soothing pats, strokes, scratches behind the ears, greeting words, he'll hopefully calm down once you've given him the greeting attention he craves. Then when you turn to go about your business...if he jumps on you, I'd either turn away and ignore that and position myself so he can't get me, then when he's back down on all fours, praise again. That's kind of what I did with my dog and he quit that jumping up very early on. I don't think it took more than a couple of times for him to understand that he's just too big for that horse play. LOL.

Carrie

Thanks for your advice Carrie, its really helpful.  They just don't know their own strength do they! Bless them!  So pleased to see you - then flatten you!  I crouched down yesterday to speak to my boy at his level - BIG MISTAKE or what - I was on my back before I even started!!! LOL :D :D  Which of course he thought was a huge game, then I couldn't get up!  Talk about ask for it by crouching down and not steadying myself properly first, I should have known better - but couldn't get up for laughing after, cause he was all over me by then!  I'll let you know how it goes, but it certainly helps having advice from same breed owners.  Thanks and have a great weekend!

Mandy

Yes, they are rough when they play. I made the mistake of thinking I could lie on my floor during commercials on TV and do some exercises. I wasn't down for 10 seconds before I had four dogs (previously asleep) all over me, two Chihuahuas standing on my chest licking my face (they have the worst breath) and my 80LB Dobe nibbling and licking  my feet and pawing at me, (they're so paw oriented) and my Lab at my head starting to roll on me. She is usually pretty sedate, but she wanted to get in on the "attack" of Mom. So much for the exercises. LOL. They're sure, when you get down at their level, that you're fair game.

I do the same as Carrie mentioned - give pup a cuddle every time I get home. He knows this and will come and sit next to me and wait until he gets it (bless). He is a nightmare for jumping up on other people but they will encourage him, not that i'm saying that's what you are doing but for example my lodger gets him so excited and I ask her not to, yesterday she got a scratch on her arm and I couldn't help saying "it wouldn't have happened if you did as I asked". Hee hee I am mean but it doesn't half drive me mad...

Hi Charlie, Thanks for your message.  I know what you mean about other people doing things differently.  You spend lots of time training at home and then outsiders to the household come in and undo all your efforts by making them excitable and hence more likely to jump up!  We try to tell people coming to our house not do make a fuss of Tag, but I guess they come in and just see his big brown eyes and happy face and everything you told them goes out the window!!!

Mandy - I find that the turning away/ignoring thing works well with our 6 month Great Dane pup (and she's a HUGE puppy!) - although it does need persistence! And you've got to REALLY ignore them, even if it hurts for a bit (!), until the behaviour fades away. They sometimes say that a behaviour can get worse before it fades away and you have to just stick with your method and not give up.

Another thing you could try - which was suggested by a trainer at our Obedience class last week - is to grab the dog's jowls (GENTLY!) when they jump up at you and growl at them. Supposedly, they hate that and it puts them off jumping on you. My husband isn't so good at the ignoring thing (he finds it hard not to flinch and to stand perfectly still and not react when Honey jumps up on him) so this method worked better for him. Instead of turning away from the dog, you actually step towards it as it's jumping up and "grab" its jowls either side of its jaw and "growl" at it, then let go immediately. He did this once with Honey and the next time she tried to jump, he just raised his hands and stepped towards her - and she backed off immediately. But I don't know if this method would work for everyone - personally, I think the ignoring method is the best. But just thought I'd mention the other method in case you find it helpful.

I find the other thing which really helps is to make your dog sit for EVERYTHING. Honey doesn't even get eye contact from us unless she is sitting - well, from me, anyway. She never tries to jump up on me and even when she's very excited to greet me after a long day out at work, she'll run up and sit in front of me for her pat, because she knows from ages ago that I won't even look at her unless she sits. But everyone's got to be very consistent - my husband isn't and so he gets the jumping up problem from her, because he doesn't always wait until she sits to give her attention.

Hsin-Yi

At the risk of being shot down in flames can I just suggest that grabbing many dogs by the jowls and growling at them is possibly NOT one of the first 10 techniques  I would choose to use with many dogs.  It is extremely confrontational and in some dogs the direct eye contact, combined with the physical contact is a recipe for potential disaster; this is NOT a management strategy that I would recommend; it may indeed work with some dogs and some owners but, as someone who has dealt with very "in your face" dogs, I am comfortable that this advice could be dangerous.

I have many tools at my disposal that I would use in preference to this which would include a degree of ignoring attention seeking, asking for an incompatible behaviour eg a sit, throwing food on the floor so that the first thing a dog does is put is head down and ipso facto dog cannot or will not jump up; this gives you breathing space etc etc.

Thanks for your reply.  I was trying the turning away and ignoring at the weekend and he certainly seemed to give up jumping up quite quickly.  I have not heard of the other method you mentioned though.  We do try and make Tag sit down in most cases for things to earn his treats, and he seems very eager to please.  Sometimes if he knows we have treats in our hands indoors, the cheeky boy tries all the positions (sit/down etc) one after the other, pleading in his eyes to get something!!! Don't ya just love 'em!