Help With Training My Puppy Not To Jump Up Or Pull On A Lead?

[~Aimee~]

We have a 5 month old Cavalier called Ruby. So far she has been quite easy to train and she picked up sit, stay, down, shake & roll over quite quickly.

At the moment we are still having trouble getting Ruby to walk nicely on a lead. She gets so excited on walks that she pulls like mad. It's worse at puppy obedience when she sees all the other dogs. All the other dogs in the class seem to be able to walk on a lead fairly well. Ruby's the only one who pulls all the time. She also jumps up on people and this is a habit I want to nip in the bud fast. When I get home, she gets so excited and jumps all over me and when someone new comes over she'll get all excited and jump all over them too. For example when my neices were here today she was jumping all over them and poor Miss 3 was screaming as she was getting scratched all over. She stopped jumping after the girls were outside for awhile. It's just the inital greeting that's the problem mostly. But she'll jump on them when she wants them to play too. Any suggestions on how to overcome this?

Edited November 16, 2008 by ~Aimee~

[Crest_Fallen]

I also have a puppy who gets very excited when seeing any people (very people orientated). What you need to think about is when your puppy jumps up, what do you do? Do you push her down? If you do, you are actually reinforcing the jumping behaviour. You need to totally ignore the jumping and wait until she sits down or stands still and then reinforce with food or praise.

I am using clicker training with my puppy and he is responding well. So when he stops jumping I mark it (clicker) and then some 'reward' food. It wont take your cav long to get the idea but best to work on this without any other distractions (when you are at home and without visitors) then practice it at training. You will also need to tell people not to touch her or acknowledge her until she has stopped jumping. With young kids this is hard so it might be best to crate her whilst she is still learning.

[kleintjie]

Aimee,

I let Evie sit before I give her food, toys, cuddles etc. When we get home she jumps up against her pen. I don't let her out until she sits down. She now knows she won't come out of her pen if she isn't sitting. Sometimes she's so excited that she can't help herself but most of the time she doesn't jump up.

Does Ruby jump up against the couch or bed and then you pick her up? Make her sit quitely for 2-3 seconds before picking her up. Evie now knows if she sits quitely next to the bed or couch she might be picked up for a cuddle.

This worked for us. I found it hard to ignore her because I'm so excited to see her as well! Try making her sit before you give her what she wants i.e. attention.

[Mohican]

With the lead pulling, we started using the stop/start method when Moh was 8 wks (got in early). We ignored the biting on the lead and quickly started walking with him in the back and front yard to the paving, not on driveway. As soon as he got too ahead and pulled, I stopped. His curiosity at why we weren't moving meant he turned his head to look at me, which caused slack in the leash so I marked that look and slack leash with a 'yes' or 'good boy' (or a click if you're using that, and continued walking whilst saying 'ok' which is his release word to move freely. His aim was to keep walking so he quickly got the idea if there was a pull, he stopped and looked and I walked forward. He rarely pulls now, but we've been lucky to train him at home away from puppy pre-school so he hasn't got excited to jump up around other dogs yet. So we'll start again from scratch in each new environment. We've had to use timeout away from the pack to stop biting us and jumping up whilst using NILIF to reinforce the behaviour we want inside.

We've stopped that a little now as we're doing pup training with Steve at K9 Force (Steve) training method of socialisation and neutralisation as we have a high prey and pack drive dog. Have you heard of it? The basis of this method neutralises the pup a little to new people and dogs by setting up a situation where they ignore him when he jumps up. Then when he sits and calms and looks to you, you reward him and satisfy that drive (is it pack drive he goes into when greeting people and dogs?). There is more info on his site or there's a thread here that's tagged I think. You can adjust the level of neutralisation you want for your pup.

ETA: Sorry, it's tagged in the puppy forum here: http://www.dolforums.com.au/index.php?showtopic=150837

Edited November 17, 2008 by Mohican