Stop Your Bouncing Ball From Jumping

Stop Dog Jumping

It is not always suggested locking your dog in a room or chaining him whenever you are visited by your friends and guests or when there’s a lizard on the wall. Have you ever wondered why your dog jumps on certain situations? If your dog misbehaves (jumps) on situations like these, it sounds like he is not properly socialized. I have talked loads on socialization earlier, and this is again another time I thought of publishing another post on how to prevent your dog from jumping. However, it’s not just socialization that can help you control jumping mishaps. Understanding why dogs jump is the first step towards controlling jumping mishaps.

Yes… socialization is one major factor obviously; so let’s start off with this. Helping your puppy mingle with strangers, your friends and situations is the best way to prevent many behavioral problems when he becomes adult. Dogs jump because they want to come closer to the object(s) or human(s) that trigger their inquisitiveness.

A consistent and regular practicing to help your dog know the natural things of a social world can mitigate their inquisitiveness. Make it a practice to take your dog out during a time of the day when he can see children playing, vehicles passing by, friends coming your way, birds & butterflies flying around and he can meet other pets on the sidewalk. Start socializing your dog at an early age.

If your dog jumps every time he sees a lizard on the wall or as soon as he finds you picking up his leash, then he has unused energy, and probably needs more exercise. Lack of exercise results in uncontrolled restlessness, including jumping accompanied with lack of focus. Giving your dog right volume of exercise is very important for maintaining a balanced behavior. ‘Right volume of exercise’ doesn’t mean excessive exercise to make him over exhausted. Over exercise is equally harmful as inadequate exercise. Consistent training alongside proper exercise leads to success.

What to train and how?

Remember, a favorable attention acts as a reward to your dog. The moment he turns notorious and jumps, seeing you coming in with his food bowl, immediately take off your attention from him, saying a firm and strong “NO”. By being consistent about this can effectively correct the undesirable jumping behavior. However, it may take time to correct bad behavior – especially like the ones such as jumping and chasing, and you need to be very patient and give your dog adequate time to get corrected.

Another wise idea is to give each undesirable behavior a unique name – say “Leap” for jumping on others, “CHASE” for chasing a running car and so on… The next step should be teaching your dog only to act on command, so that he will Jump only when you say “LEAP”, which means he will not jump until you direct him to jump by deliver the command “LEAP”. This in turn means you can control or rather manipulate some of his actions by giving or not giving command.

Training can only be effective if it’s calm and consistent. Teach your dog to perform any action (jump or sit) on command without forcing him, shoving him, yelling at him and absolutely without any kind of excitable movements or vocalization on your part. Any kind of excitement expressed by you will incite the dog, and will make de-focused further. For every desirable action he performs he should be praised lavishly – which acts as a reward to him. If your dog happens to be an unfocused jumper, it may be a bit more challenging; he needs enough on-leash exercise to sit and stay on commands at the very outset. Teaching him to jump only on command should be an advanced phase of training, followed by an extensive on-leash exercise to teach him sit and stay calm.

Consistency is the key to the success. You need to be consistent with the word you choose for each of the undesirable actions of your dog. You have to be consistent about what you want and what you don’t. You have to be consistent about the word your use as an corrective command – “NO” or “NAY” or “STOP” or “HALT”. Never allow him to jump until you direct him to do so. Immediately remove your attention and move back once his starts jumping seeing you picking up his leash. Most importantly — Do Not Allow Another Dog Lover Stop You From Correcting Your Dog In Middle Of Your Corrective Training Process. Doing So Will Confuse Your Dog And Things Will Only Worsen Up.

Related Read: Play Time Hyper-Excitement

What to let him know?

Your dog doesn’t know at what time he’s not allowed to jump. But he can understand at what situation he should not jump. Let him know that putting his collar around his neck means he needs to behave calm. A consistent on-leash training process will make him understand that he should not jump when he is on his leash or when he has the collar around his neck. If your friend visits you and he is not on leash he knows he can jump as he is not disallowed to do so, because he doesn’t have the collar yet. But the moment he is on the leash or collared, he understands that he should not jump.
So whenever someone knocks your door, make sure your put the collar your dog before your open the door. Do so is actually a non-verbal command for your dog asking him not to jump at the incoming guest.