Preventing Jumping

[Dame Aussie]

Ok, Mosley is our Anatolian boy, he's not even 18 months yet and is still very immature and silly.

We had a problem with him jumping when he was little and he's been doing really well, had almost stopped completely, but just recently he has become even worse.

He doesn't jump on us so much, but on visitors when they come to the door. He loves everyone and everything and is an extremely excitable dog. What makes this worse is that he's 45kg

I'm just wondering if anyone has any methods we can try to get him to stop this! We have people turn their backs on him if he jumps, and we do the same, we tell him "No" but he just doesn't listen, it's too exciting for him!

He is actually quite obedient, will drop things when told, knows all his sit/stay/shake etc...it's just that he becomes so excited about new people he's almost uncontrollable. I sometimes just lock him in the bedroom if people are coming over and let him out once they've been here for a while, he's a bit better but not great!

Does anyone have any tried and true methods to stop this??

Thanks guys

[Aidan]

There are a few ways but one of the tricks I have used is to teach the pup to "sit" to a cue of folded arms. Assuming pup already knows how to sit on cue, what you do is fold your arms, say "sit", then unfold your arms and reward with food when he sits. Repeat until he is anticipating that you will say "sit" when you fold your arms, then you can start dropping the verbal cue.

Get friends and family to do it too, so you're teaching him to sit whenever ANYONE folds their arms. Use food rewards every time at first, then intermittently when it is well learned and he does it reliably for anyone. Do it after he has settled down if you have new visitors, this is the teaching phase so we're making it really easy for him. Do lots of reps with different people, get the idea ingrained that if someone folds their arms, he sits.

When you have guests, simply ask them to fold their arms. That way they are less likely to reinforce or encourage his jumping by their actions, and they are also cueing him to 'sit'. When he is sitting, they can give him attention (which is what he really wants when he greets visitors).

[poodlefan]

And while he gets the hang of it, put him on lead for when visitors arrive. He can't jump on someone he can't reach.

[Dame Aussie]

Awesome thanks Aidan, I'll give that a try!

And PF - Why didn't I think of that!