COLUMN: Stop your dog from jumping up

• Nadine Whittal, dog trainer writes:

A common issue that dog owners face is how to stop their dog from jumping up on them and on strangers. It also seems to be the issue that most people struggle with continuously. The method for preventing this behaviour is really quite simple though.

First, start as you mean to go on. If you do not like it when a grown dog jumps up, then don’t let a puppy jump up. It is difficult to untrain behaviour that you have been allowing the dog to get away with since it was a puppy. Remember, just like babies, all puppies eventually grow up so don’t perpetuate a behaviour that is going to be a problem later on in life.

How do you teach it? The key thing is never to reward behaviour you don’t like.

So, when a puppy or dog is jumping up to get your attention, don’t give it that attention. You only ever reward them when all four of their feet are on the ground. It is very tempting to give them attention, particularly when you get home, because you love that your dog is so excited to see you, but ignoring it until it has calmed down will teach the dog to control its impulses.

The other thing you can do is give the dog something else to do that is a different behaviour to jumping up and that will get them the reward (attention) they so desire. For example, if you ask your dog to sit before it jumps up, then jumping up becomes an impossibility and you can give your dog attention for doing what you want it to do.

The key to all of this is consistency. If you continue to practice the above with your dog, then your dog will eventually accept that jumping up won’t get it what it wants.

However, if you get lazy and impatient with the process, and start to let things slide then the undesired behaviour will continue to persist. Good luck everybody!