No Jump and/or Off

I think dogs jumping up on people is one of the most common complaints.  This is something you definitely don’t want from your Service Dog.  If you can train your puppy not to jump, this will probably stick with them into adulthood.  But this requires consistency.  Owners are guilty of letting their cute little puppy to jump up and they allow it until the puppy is jumping up with dirty paws.

Train a really good sit stay and use it.  Stay calm.  No enthusiastic greetings.  It’s not fair to expect your dog to calmly sit when you are bending over them with high pitched greetings.  Remember to praise, but never reward higher then the dog’s head.  If you hold the treat up and reward, your dog is going to jump up, probably on you to get it.  If your dog does jump up, turn around and leave.

DO NOT encourage the dog to jump on you so you can tell him “no”.  You’ll lose his trust.  That being said, in this video I am encouraging the puppy to jump but I am not scolding him for it, because I am encouraging it.  What I’m doing is showing the difference between the let’s have fun and jump and sit where he gets praise and a treat.  My end result is to get the sit under any circumstances.  In the other video I’m encouraging him with a toy but the reward comes with the treat.  Even with my encouragement in both videos, I keep it very low key.

If your dog jumps on you when you walk in the house, calmly keep walking away from the dog and into another room.  Walk to the kitchen and look out the window or wash a dish.  Ignore!  If you have to, go into a room and shut the door.  As soon as the dog is no longer jumping up, or even better, sits, give him a treat that was strategically placed on the kitchen counter or anywhere else where you stopped, however remember the reward has to be at the level of the dog’s head and no higher or you’ve defeated the “no jump” scenario.

One additional solution you can try is to leave a ball, toy or a dish of treats on a table by the front door.  When you enter, throw the ball or toy away from you.  If they bring the ball back to you, ask for a sit.