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Episode #296 Help For Jumping Dogs · The Puppy Training Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm answering a question that you responded to from a Tuesday tip email entitled, What do you want your puppy to do?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now many of you answered, in fact, dozens of you, jumping.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want my dog to jump.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: What can I train them to do instead?
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Today, we're talking all about it.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast, the show designed to help you raise a confident, well-behaved puppy using positive practical training methods.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Each week we'll explore real-life training strategies, break down common puppy challenges, and give you clear, step-by-step guidance you can start using right away.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're dealing with potty training, biting, jumping, or just want to build a stronger bond with your pupp as their handler, you're in the right place.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hi you guys, thanks for listening, and I appreciate your responses to my Tuesday tip email because we now have the next two months' worth of content scheduled out, and they're all based on your questions.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now the replies were awesome, and one theme that towered over all the others for me was jumping.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jumping on guests, jumping on you when you walk through the door, jumping at the world on walks.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Katie specifically wrote in about Mac, her mini doodle, who jumps on everyone at home and out on walks, and her message was basically one word, help.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Craig Schnoodle jumps at the people and at moving vehicles.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jennifer wants Linus to sit calmly when people come through the door instead of launching at them.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if any of that sounds familiar, today's episode is for you.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about jumping, not punishing the jump, but by teaching the greeting.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to teach your dog what to do instead.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, first, let's clear your dog's name.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jumping is not rudeness to them, and it's not them trying to be dominant to you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jumping is a greeting.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Puppies greet their mothers face to face.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Licking faces is literally how puppies say hello.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: So your dog jumping is probably their desire to get closer to your face.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now your face is up there, and that's the good stuff.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your attention, your voice, your hands, it's all high up there as well, which just entices our dogs to jump.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the part we have to own.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Jumping usually works.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Every person who pets a jumping dog or talks to a jumping dog or even pushes a jumping dog down while saying off, off is giving the dog attention for jumping, which is payment.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Attention is attention.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So from your dog side of the leash, jumping produces people interaction every single time.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So why should he stop?
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now remember last week's framework manage, replace, and then we're going to proof that behavior.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: So jumping is one of those rehearsed habits, just like any other.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Your dog has practiced it hundreds of times and it's paid off hundreds of times.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, maybe not for you.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your dog's not that old and you have a more of a clean slate, but maybe some of you, yeah, that resonates.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: My dog's been jumping for years and I need to change it.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't scold the rehearsal.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to close that road and we're going to create a new pathway.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to create a greeting behavior that pays your dog better.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now that behavior is four on the floor.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I like to say sit to say please.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: We can call it really whatever you want, but we want all four paws on the ground.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So first I want you to start where it's easy to train this new behavior, this make this new pathway, right?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to be at home with you, no guests.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the rule of the game is simple.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: All the good stuff happens when four paws are on the floor, and the good stuff vanishes the instant the paws leave the floor.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So here's how it looks you walk towards your dog.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: If he keeps four paws on the ground, you he gets greeted calmly at his level.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So you can crouch down so your face comes to him.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't have to come up to get it.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: The moment he jumps, you turn into a tree.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Arms folded, turn away.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're a boring statue.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: No off, no pushing, no eye contact.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the second four paws are back on the floor, we can again have a party, reward him.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So dogs figure this game out fast because the contrast is crystal clear.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Four paws on the floor gets the person.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Air paws get a statue.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want you to show your dog how to do this if they don't know how to do this.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: So rather than just wait for your dog to jump on you, when you see your dog coming towards you, give them a target hand.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or even if you're headed towards your dog.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Either way, you can show them this is where I want your attention.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So put a little food reward in your hand, close your fist around it, and put that target hand down low so that your dog has to look down at your hand to uh to figure out what is in there.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: If you hold your hand up too high, they'll want to jump for that, right?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Hands up high means your dog's going to jump.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So keep that hand down low, and then their head is down low and all paws are on the ground.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And from there, you can lure them into that sit.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's been no jump in that pattern.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Dogs learn in patterns, and if we take the jump out of that pattern, then that's not part of the process of the greeting.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: The greeting becomes, oh, here comes Amy, I sit, and then she gives me something, right?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not, oh, here comes Amy, I'm going to jump up to say hi to her.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you might need to show your dog what it is you're wanting them to do before that prior step can happen.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some of your dogs will be able to figure that out, but if you're getting the jump in that pattern, then you need to go back to this step of showing them what to do first so that you can then reward that behavior.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So to recap, what we're looking for in greetings is our dog sees us and they sit to be greeted rather than jump up to greet us.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if they know the sit to say please and you're trying it out to see if they'll do it all on their own and they happen to jump, that's where that be a statue, turn away, don't give them attention for that comes in.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: But that needs to be, you know, maybe 10% of the time, 90% of the time, the jump's not even happening.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're offering us that sit to say please, and we're rewarding that so they know that, ah, that's what works.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Recognize that a sitting dog physically cannot jump.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: The two behaviors don't fit in the same dog at the same time.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So practice this again first in a quiet place.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: I approach, my dog sits, he gets paid.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm going to repeat until sitting when a person approaches is just what he does.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I might then practice with family members and I would go through each family member in my house.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I might invite over a friend and practice with my friend.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: So don't go to that hard level first.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure your dog can be successful at sitting to be greeted with people he knows and is comfortable with and that he's not stressed out by or too excited by.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some of your dogs are going to be too excited about people, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to build up to that level of proof.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not going to debut this as a at a real arrival.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're not going to start practicing this when the doorbell's ringing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: We need the excitement to be low.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: We need the person to not be squealing and super excited to see your cute puppy.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know how our voices get really high and excited when we talk about puppies.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's natural, I know, but we need to build up to that level of excitement and help our dog win so that they understand, okay, I can do this.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they're building some skills along the way.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then when Aunt Linda actually comes to the house and she is squealing, at least our puppy has practiced and they've been prepped for that.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one warning: it is helpful if your entire household plays by the same rules.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have one family member who loves the jumpy greeting, and then there's one who's like, oh, I don't really like it.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we kind of need to work together to get on the same page as a family just to help our dog uh build this good habit of not jumping from the get-go.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you love your dog to jump up on you, some of you like that.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we put it on cue.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we call it a hug and you cue your dog to do that.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: But if the cue's not there, then the dog doesn't jump.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so let's get a little bit more in detail about real arrivals.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Guests are arriving.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is like the Super Bowl of jumping for your dog.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: We need to manage it while we're still in training.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: We pair those two together: management and training.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: A leash needs to be on your dog before the door opens, or there needs to be a baby gate between your dog and the entryway.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Come in.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I might text them ahead saying, hey, we're doing some dog training.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Please ignore my dog completely until all four paws are on the floor.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then just say hi calmly.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Guests who know the game become your training helpers instead of sabotaging the training.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And when your dog holds four paws on the floor for a real guest, make sure you pay them like it's so awesome because right now it is.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Susan, if you are listening, this one's for you because you asked about the dog who jumps when you come home.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Your homecoming is probably the biggest party of your dog's day.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: So make your entrance a little bit boring.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now I love to say hi to my dog just like I'm sure you do, but come in, set your things down, let the first few minutes of excitement drain, then greet calmly at your dog's level.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're not withholding love, you're just teaching him that calm gets the greeting, and the greeting still always comes.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Another trick for you would be to teach your dog to go get a toy.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So for Bella, this works great.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: She gets really excited when I come home.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: She squeals with excitement, actually.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's super cute.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just tell her, Bella, go get your toy.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where's your toy?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as I walk through the door, and she just knows to go get her toy before we greet.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then she has something in her mouth that she can kind of uh get a little bit of her excitement out as she runs away to go find the toy and runs back to me.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then we work on a nice sit to say, please, and she's really good at it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you need some management to help as you train your dog to do this, feel free to set up a baby gate or to plan your entrance somehow such that your dog can't actually get to you.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can prevent that jumping that way.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: But teaching your dog a behavior to do, giving them a specific job to do, like I did with Bella and saying, go get your toy, that can redirect their brain away from jumping onto a different task.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then we can implement that target hand for sit to say please.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now the harder version, jumping out in the world.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So Katie wrote in that Mac jumps on people during walks.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's the home game when the dials are turned up.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to turn those dials back down.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: We want to add distance.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we might need to cross the street, step onto a driveway, put a parked car between you and the approaching person.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: At enough distance, your dog can notice people, but keep their paws on the floor and get paid for being calm.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So over time, we'll shrink that distance down session by session.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: If your dog is launching towards people or something that they're really excited about, we're too close.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's good information for us, not failure.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Craig, your schnoodle jumping at moving vehicles gets an extra rule because we need to be safe and keep your dog safe.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: So distance first always.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: If we have a dog that's lunging at cars, that's a dog who can pull a leash out of a hand.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we want to make sure that we work from enough distance where he can look at the car, we can mark it, he looks back at us and he gets paid for that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that car can become a cue to check in with you instead of a cue to launch.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But we need to build it in a quiet neighborhood before you ever try this on a busy road.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have a class here at Baxter and Bella on reactivity, and I highly recommend you watch that and then come to our group Q ⁇ A's to ask questions about it or schedule a one-on-one with our trainers and we can help you through this.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So here's your homework for the week.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to pick one greeting to work on.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the front door, maybe your homecoming, or when you're out on a walk and you see people where we're working on reactivity issues, perhaps.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to play the four on the floor game in a quiet place until it's easy for your dog.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then I want you to manage those real moments with a leash or a baby gait or a distance so that your dog can't practice that old jumping behavior.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're going to brief our family and our people, right?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: About these are the new rules and this is how we're going to handle it.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is everybody okay with that?
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's going to be super helpful for your dog.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you learned something new or helpful.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope you come back.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Happy training.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in today.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe so you never miss a training tip.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're enjoying the show, leaving a quick review really helps other handlers find us.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: For more training resources, tips, and support, visit me, Amy Jensen, at baxterambella.com.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, happy training.