I know it can be really embarrassing, even dangerous, when you have a guest in the house and you just can’t get your dog to stop jumping up at them. The problem can be serious, for example where there is a large dog and a small child, or an elderly person or physically compromised person who is less steady on their feet. It can also be annoying to some people, especially where there are muddy paws involved!
You can contact Dog Scouts here to enquire about getting professional help for the problem. In the meantime take a read of this blog for strategies you can put in to action immediately..
Let’s start with the most common piece of advice given: asking your guests to ignore the dog. One of the problems with this is that you’re putting the responsibility on your guest to train your dog for you. Let’s be clear: this task is purely your responsibility and it isn’t a fair (or realistic) expectation that your guest will be able to ignore your cute/large/ over the top dog jumping up at them. Also, people usually fail to understand that part of ignoring the dog includes not giving them any eye contact whatsoever or speaking to them which can be just as reinforcing as petting them. On reflex people will also push your dog down and this can be interpreted as a play gesture to your dog.
Some guests will comply with this request better than others. So the dog gets reinforced sometimes for the jumping up but not always. This can actually make the behaviour even stronger than if they got attention every time they jumped up. The reason for this is that when a previously reinforced behaviour ceases to be reinforced the dog starts to try even harder to get that outcome they have come to expect. So they might jump up more and with more force. If the reinforcement stopped completely they would eventually give up; the problem occurs when they get the reinforcement sometimes and sometimes not. Human beings experience this too, we get frustrated when we don’t get the outcome we expect from past learning. Example: you press the button on the elevator but the door doesn’t close. You’ve previously been reinforced for the behaviour of pressing the button by the door closing and the elevator taking you where you want to go. You get a little frustrated that it isn’t working this time so you press the button again, 3 times in a row this time and you press even harder. This is what happens to your dog when sometimes they get pets for jumping up and other times they get ignored.
Now on to what you can do to take control of the situation! Here are my top 5 tips:
1. Presence doesn't mean Access
So this is pretty straight forward: your dog doesn’t always need to have access to the guest. Put them in another room, behind a baby gate or in a pen or crate. This might not sound like training but it is. Dogs learn that having a guest in the house is important, events happen, exciting things happen. By preventing them from having access to a guest with some form of barrier they will learn that actually, guests are not an important event and are really none of their business. In this way you are conditioning their brains to react differently to someone coming in to the house. It is best to start this with young dogs, they can meet guests sometimes but they need to learn that they don’t need to meet everyone!! For an older dog implementing this will be a little more challenging. Your dog may become frustrated as they will no longer have access to something they previously learned is important. But don’t fret we can still address this: give them something of equal value to enjoy in the other room you have put them. Something like a kong with high value food in it.
2. Grow Calmness
So the last tip leads me nicely on to this next one. Its obvious: if your dog is in a calm state of mind you are not going to have over the top greetings. Build calmness generally.
Active Rest
Make sure your dog gets enough rest during the day – give them space away from the hustle and bustle of family life and make sure they have adequate time to sleep and rest. Dogs don’t follow the same sleeping pattern humans do and they require a lot more sleep than we do.
Reward Calm Behaviour
You can also reinforce calm choices generally; even where guests are not in the house if you catch your dog choosing calm behaviour e.g. when they are resting/sleeping/lying in their bed reward them by calmly placing a piece of food next to them. If you can place it there without waking them up, even better!
Provide them with calming activities
The third way to grow calmness is to provide them with calming activities – anything they can chew, lick or sniff out will be naturally calming for them. I recommend food toys such as Kongs, K9 Connectibles, Snuffle Mats and Lickimats. You can give them these daily and also create calm associations by giving them one of these in the presence of the guest. It also gives them something else to do instead of focusing their attention on the guest.
3. Use boundaries (for both your guest and your dog)
It can be very effective to station your guest before they get to meet your dog. Get your guest to sit at the table for example before you bring your dog in to the room. The guest is less likely to get excited themselves and encourage jumping up in your dog. Sit them at a kitchen table - the table can act as a barrier making it more difficult for your dog to jump up. Just like I mentioned giving your dog something else to focus on, do the same for your guest - give them a cup of tea and/or a treat. You can also teach your dog to have value in and choose a boundary such as a bed instead of jumping all over your guest. Learn how to play Absolute Dog’s Boundary Games with your dog with their DVD which you can purchase here.
The good news is that Boundary Games will also help with other common problems such as stealing things from the counter and begging for food. It will teach your dog some self-control which can apply to lots of different scenarios where that might be a problem for them.
4. Put greetings on cue
Ok so you will need a helper for this one. As your dog is about to greet your helper say something like “say hi”. Your helper can greet your dog calmly at this point. Ask your helper to calmly stroke your dogs chest with one hand and feed them a treat with the other. The hand with the treat should be held low so that the reward is coming from below rather than above, discouraging any jumping up. After a few seconds call your dog away. The helper should go completely still at this point and ignore your dog. As soon as your dog even looks at you tell them how amazing they are and feed them lots of treats for turning away from the helper. You can then repeat the exercise by telling your dog to “say hi” again.
This teaches your dog to:
A) Only greet on cue and
B) That coming away from other people is also a good deal for them.
You will no longer be struggling to get your dog away from people. You will need to repeat this exercise over a few sessions at least. In this scenario the person is primed to help you with this training set up rather than leaving things to chance when random guests arrive.
5. Reinforce what you do want
Ask yourself where is the value for your dog now and where do you want the value to be? The value is with the visitor and up high. Instead reinforce your dog down low and when they have all four paws on the floor. When they come up to greet you place food on the floor so they have to reach down to get it instead of reaching up. Give them attention when they seek it politely and withdraw attention when they are being rude.
The bottom line is to combine management and training. Manage the environment so your dog doesn’t get opportunities to do (and inadvertently get rewarded for) the unwanted behaviour. Barriers and leashes are your management tools. Train your dog what you do want them to do instead and reward them for the good things they do. Always set your dog up for success: if they can’t make good choices in a certain situation right now, don’t put them in that situation.
Visitor struggles are amongst the most common issues dog trainers get contacted for. If you would like help in learning how to put these steps in to action contact Dog Scouts for a consultation by calling +353 398 1110 or email maeve@dogscouts.ie
Happy Training everyone!
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