Sometimes, dogs will jump up to greet people when they arrive – something you might be familiar with as a dog owner!
Some people are fine with this, but others don’t enjoy it – at best, they might find it annoying, and at worst it could be dangerous and a real safety hazard. Even if you’re happy with your dog jumping up at you, most other people will not feel the same.
For that reason, you may be wondering how to stop your dog from jumping up to say hello. And fortunately, it’s not as difficult as you might think. Juliana DeWillems, the owner and head trainer at JW Dog Training & Behavior, has explained what we can try in a new Instagram post, which we’ll look at below.
“First, it can be really helpful to teach your dog an appropriate greeting behavior with known boring people,” begins DeWillems as she discusses how to stop a dog from jumping up. “Taking the excitement and surprise out of the equation when training leads to much better results.”
She recommends teaching a “go say hi” cue, where your dog approaches the person briefly for a hand target or quick pet before returning to you for one of the best high-value dog treats.
“Rehearsing this over and over again in a boring setting makes it muscle memory for both you and your dog, leading to your dog being more likely to be able to focus when a guest comes over,” she continues.
DeWillems’ other piece of advice is to utilize a trained greeting sequence, repeating it as many times as you need to until your dog gets the greeting out of their system and begins to calm down.
“Greetings can go south if the dog has too much access to the person they’re saying hi to, but also too little access to the person, which can create frustration,” she explains. “By going through the rehearsed “go say hi” sequence multiple times, we help the dog meet the person in a way that is safe and low frustration for all parties.”
If you’re after some more advice, this article from a dog parent in a similar position might be useful: I tried everything to get my dog to stop jumping up, here’s what actually worked.
