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When, or HOW, will my bc puppy quit jumping on me!


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So I got my first bc at 9 mos of age and she took to training immediately. Not a single problem with training her. Anyway, my pup is now 20 weeks old and since I got him at 10 weeks everytime he starts to jump on me I give him a push away and tell him 'OFF'. He's learning everything I've been teaching him with the exception of off (he's even learned to stay out of one of the 'out of bounds' rooms). Up until now I've remained patient thinking it's just him being a puppy and excitable and that one day he'll eventually 'catch on'. Just need some clarification as to whether he will eventually stop or is there something else I should also be doing in adition (I recall a spray bottle of water is usefull for some things?) Yeah, think I WILL try that since he didn't seem to like it when I sprinkled water on his mug when I was at the sink and he tried to jump up).

 

So any suggesstions?

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So any suggesstions?

 

I went through two rounds of puppy class with my trainer (one with my dog hiding under my chair, the later one with my dog acting all border-collie-I'm-the-star-and-know-all-the-commands). I watched him fix this problem over and over, exactly the same way every time.

 

Man approaches dog who wants to jump up for fun meeting and snuggles.

 

Dog starts to rise from a "sit."

 

Man immediately turns on heel and walks away from dog.

 

Man approaches dog again.

 

Dog rises again.

 

Man turns on heel again.

 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

 

Man approaches dog.

 

Dog remains seated politely.

 

Man makes a party of joy and greeting for dog.

 

I swear, this guy had every single dog he worked with staying in a very polite "sit" to greet him within five minutes. I tried the technique on my neighbor's puppy, and within a couple days she would sit when she saw me coming over to her.

 

The trick is following through and making sure EVERYONE who the pup wants to greet doesn't approach unless the pup is sitting. In the case of my neighbor, she only learned to sit nice for me - she still jumped on everyone else who came near her.

 

Good luck!

 

Mary

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Thanks Mary, I think that is a very good idea and I'm going to give it as try! Should have thought of that myself since it's pretty much inline with a lot of other things. Kind of like 'don't obey my commands? ... GAME OVER!' And what's probably going to make it much easier is he's almost always sitting waiting for me to enter the room through the infant gate!

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Exactly what Mary said.

 

The dog is jumping and you are giving attention. Even though you think it's negative attention, "pushing away and saying OFF" is still interaction. Most times they don't care if it's good or bad attention, "human is paying attention to me..."

 

The baby gate will help you with this, especially if he's sitting waiting for you anyway!

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"When or how will my bc puppy quit jumping on me!"

 

Quick answer from someone who is admittedly sarcastic at times, "when you make him stop."

 

I'm sure others will give you very detailed responses on how to make that happen, requiring much more time and patience than my method, so I won't go into it here, other than to say, pick a method and be totally consistent with it.

 

A

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Excellent advice, Mary!! I tried everything with Usher- the greeter- it's "other people" that say "Oh, he must smell my dog" - when I try to correct him that just bugs the heck outta me! Finally, after he matured and had a good solid sit or down- he came around. People told me I had a new dog- LOL.

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An approach that you might consider would be to teaching him to "stay on all fours" instead of "not to jump".

 

I teach this by teaching the dog an "off". That's usually pretty easy to train. I get some treats and say to the dog "up-up" and when he jumps up on me, I reward. Then I say, "off" and when the dog's paws hit the ground, I reward. Once the dog can "up-up" and "off" on cue, I move the behavior into situations where the dog will jump up on his or her own. I'll anticipate the jumping with the "off" cue. In the end "off" really means "4 on the floor", not "get off". I'll reward that until it's solid.

 

I've found that by doing this consistently, the dog eventually reserves jumping up for truly exciting occasions and I very rarely need to cue an "off".

 

One thing I like about this is that I can allow my dog to give me an enthusiastic jump-up greeting by cueing an "up-up". I really enjoy those greetings sometimes.

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The knee is an amazing tool... Jade never jumped up on me, but I had one friend that she would always jump up on. When Jade was running towards her one day in the house, my friend simply raised her knee- she didn't do it to impact Jade with any force, only that well, if her knee was already up, it was Jade's fault if she ran into it, and to block Jade's jump. Well, that's exactly what happened- she hit Jen's knee (impact #1), fell down on the floor (impact #2), and bumped her head (impact #3). Needless to say, it was quite traumatic for her, and she's never jumped on anyone since. I'm not saying that's what anyone else should do, I'm just saying that that's the series of events (not planned and not necessarily intended) that lead to Jade not jumping on anyone anymore. I'm also not condoning abuse by any means- not that this was abuse, I'm just assuming someone will take it as that.

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A lot of good advice has been given.

I want to echo Kristine.

 

An approach that you might consider would be to teaching him to "stay on all fours" instead of "not to jump".

 

ESPECIALLY if you want to do formal obedience with him. It will make the "Stand for Exam" much easier to learn. In the "stand for exam" you place your dog in a standing position, tell him stay, take a few steps away from him. The judge will then approach, handle your dog and move away. You return to the dog and release him from the stay.

 

I have always taught my dogs to sit when a stranger approaches. I've also never done any formal obedience until I got Cowboy. The stand for exam was very hard for him, because everytime the judge/instructor approached, he'd plop down into a sit!

 

But, if you don't want to do obedience, either a sit or a stay on all fours is just fine. :rolleyes:

 

One other note to consider for the "stay on all fours" is this. It can be quite useful for vet appointments. Especially if the vet needs to do anything with the back end of your dog. Keeping the dog in a stand position makes it much easier for taking temps, collecting fecal samples, etc. (I also learned this the hard way!!)

 

Something to think about! Again, very good advice by all.

Good luck with your training!

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"When or how will my bc puppy quit jumping on me!"

 

Quick answer from someone who is admittedly sarcastic at times, "when you make him stop."

 

I'm sure others will give you very detailed responses on how to make that happen, requiring much more time and patience than my method, so I won't go into it here, other than to say, pick a method and be totally consistent with it.

 

A

 

Ha! Anna, I think I use your method! :rolleyes:

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Yes, I agree, a lot of good suggestions! I already started with the turning back when Jonah gets up to see how he'd do. He seemed to take it fairly well but there is one problem- it was a bit difficult for me to constantly be turning back when all I wanted was to get into the kitchen to get something! But now that I read further replies I remembered the knee method was one method taught in Sassy's obediience class back in 2000 and it worked really well. As for standing on all fours, it was simple and quick for Sassy to learn that as 'up', and then a 'simple' stay. In fact, at 9 mos when I got her she basically learned everything rather quickly (previous owner hadn't done any training other than sit, stay, come). But now I'm finding a 20 week old is a different beast! Which is why I had been thinking the proverbial 'Oh, he's just a puppy'

 

Anyway, I'll see again how well Jonah does with the 'turning back' after I get home this evening. Maybe I ought to incorporate this into our evening Frisbee session (he jumps all around in excitement when I grab the Frisbee and take him out into the yard)

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Welcome!

 

With regards to frisbee - a young pup needs reasonable exercise but remember that a lot of jumping and impact is not good for a youngster and should be delayed until around a year of age or so. Roll the frisbee on the ground for a good exercise and remember to not overdo with a pup.

 

You've gotten good advice on the jumping up issue - you can also use the "search" function at the top of the page to find a number of other threads on this topic.

 

Best wishes!

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Not to worry, all Jonah does is run after Sassy when she goes after the Frisbee. And THEN he attempts to get it away from her. Just so cute as Sassy is running back with the Frisbee in her mouth while Jonah attempts to take it from her mouth, and Sassy just keeps playing 'keep away' with him. What is REALLY cool is when Sassy gets back near me, eventually she lets Jonah take it, who in turn brings it to me!

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Ha! Anna, I think I use your method! laugh.gif

 

Haha! It's quick, and it's efficient! And it only takes one time. I don't have the time or the patience to keep "nagging" at a dog to make it stop an undesirable behavior. Stop it now, and let's move on to more fun stuff...

 

A

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I don't have the time or the patience to keep "nagging" at a dog to make it stop an undesirable behavior. Stop it now, and let's move on to more fun stuff...

 

A

 

Aaah, but for some of us what you consider "nagging" is a big part of the fun stuff. :rolleyes:

 

The process of teaching Dean to sit at the door instead of throwing himself against it like a pancake is one of my most treasured first memories of him. I still think of it and smile often when he sits at the door as I let him out.

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To help with other people allowing your dog to jump on them saying "its ok he can smell my dog,or hes only a puppy etc" we teach a "sit hello" at our school .You get your dog to sit, reward, as you reward you say "hello" or whatever most people say when meeting you and pat and generally behave very excited but only reward and pat while dog sits, if they get up or jump you turn your back .It takes a few goes but it does work .

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...throwing himself against it like a pancake

 

:rolleyes: Great visual!!

 

A

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BTW, I did give Anna's method a try and sure enough, worked like a charm! (Thanks Anna!)

 

And I am enjoying just as much watching him stay back when I enter the room had I used any other method. Even MORE so since inside I'm always saying "damn, just once and it did the trick!"

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  • 2 weeks later...

I tried turning my back on my pup but she would just jump against my back.

She had a very annoying trick of putting both paws together and extending her legs

when she jumps. Like being rammed by a dolphin. I tried the knee trick and she

just avoids it while I hop around like a drunk stork. Both of these methods worked

with my other dogs when they were pups. What works for this pup is to hold her paws

when she jumps up and keep her there for a bit which she disliked. Now she's mostly cured.

When I see her relapse I just hold my hands out when I see her coming like I'm going to catch her

paws and she checks herself. I guess you just have to keep trying and see what works for you.

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the best thing you can do is to ignore him completly when he jumps on you, don't say a word, and make sure you turn your back when he jumps, the point is that you cant give him any attention at all. and make sure you reward him when he is sitting and calm, just be very consistent, and before you know it, he wont jump anymore, it is hard with some puppies, but it takes work and time.

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Totally ignore any behavior you dislike. We have a jumper and one who also scratches you with her claws. Ignoring her has helped me and she just leaves my area when she gets no attention. Holding her paws didn't help; she held out longer than I could and the behavior was repeated over and over. JMO

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