This month we’d like to focus on a particular situation that is common with dogs and one that involves jumping up during a greeting. The situation we have in mind is one many dog owners face on a daily basis, returning home to your dog after a prolonged separation of some kind. This typically involves leaving a dog at home so that an owner can go to work, or even just to the store. Upon returning home the dog is excited and much more prone to jump up on the owner when they enter the house. Has this ever happened to you? First, recognize that you, as a special member of your dog’s social group, have been gone for a while. In other, more specific terms we’d say that your dog has been deprived of your presence for that period of time. You are not accessible. Think of that like you would a glass of water. If you were deprived of access to a glass of water for five hours, how would you feel if a glass of water were presented to you after that period of time? Do you think you’d drink it more quickly than you normally might when water is available around you all the time? This is how many dogs experience being left alone, as a deprivation. When you return, they are eager to gulp down some social interaction! Instead of sipping, they chug the glass down!
So, how do we as dog owners handle this if we’d like to prevent jumping in this context? One of the most common suggestions is to ignore the dog. I learned this in my own journey to become a dog trainer myself. After trying it a few times, I found it to be an inadequate strategy. Let’s take a moment to examine this strategy so that we can better understand it and why it’s recommended so widely.
Ignoring the Dog: This is suggested for good reason. The attempt is to prevent some form of social interaction from reinforcing the jumping behavior. It makes sense to try to prevent any consequence to a behavior that you might suspect is reinforcing the behavior (such as pushing a dog down when it jumps on you), because such reinforcement may actually make the behavior stronger and more likely to continue. Here’s why ignoring doesn’t work so well, though. Remember how thirsty you were without that water for five hours? If I brought a glass of water into a room you’ve been waiting in, water-less, and tried to ignore any of your attempts to gain access to the water, how do you think you’d respond? Would you, in your deprived state, stop trying to get at that cool and tasty thirst quencher? Would you revert to sitting calmly if I simply ignored all of your attempts to get at the water? I highly doubt it. You’d likely try harder to gain access to the refreshing liquid that has the power to make your thirst disappear. Try this with your kids or significant other upon returning home from the restaurant with dinner and get back to me with how successful it goes! Usually ignoring just causes frustration because the dog can’t gain access to what they want. The frustration can even cause dogs to jump more! (Or kids and significant others to complain more).
So, what can be done? We recommend working to find a way to reinforce a behavior other than jumping. The goal here is to find a behavior that you can reinforce before jumping occurs so that we can begin to teach your dog a new way to gain access to the social attention they seek when you get home.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to prevent jumping when you get home from work. Let’s assume that your dog is free to wander the house and usually greets you at the door when you return. Remember that your dog is super excited to see you at this time and typically seems unable to listen to anything you say, so talking and using cues is out of the question in this moment. Here’s what I would try. I’d open the door and toss a few tasty treats into the room, right past my dog’s nose so that she could follow them to the floor. Once she’s stepped away from the door to get the treats, I’d wait for her to finish the treats and then toss some more when she looks up at me. I’d move into the room in this manner, tossing a treat or two every time she looks up at me after finishing the last one, and I’d move her through the space by tossing these treats so that I could get into the house. If I do this well, I don’t experience any jumping at all. This new game is fun for her, and we are interacting socially, but there is no jumping! I would then experiment to see if she could sit for me before I toss the next treat. I ask for a sit and she sits! I then toss the treat so that she has to go get it. I’d ask for another sit and repeat this game several times. She sits, I toss away so she has to go collect the treat. I’d find a place to sit myself, I’m tired after a long day after all, and continue this sit and toss game. She’s sitting really well. I’d then begin to replace some of the food treats with petting her, because that’s really what she’s after, some good physical interaction. She’s been without it all day. I’d ask her to sit, then reward that with some calm petting on her chest. If she gets too worked up and begins to climb on me, I’d ask for a sit and then toss the treat again. I’d work with her with this game until she can interact calmly with the physical petting but I’d continue with the tossing so that she can burn off some of that pent up energy that has developed while I’ve been at work.
By using a strategy like this one, you engage your dog in some sort of fun activity that enables her to expend some energy while learning a new way to be social with you when you get home. I’d repeat this every day for a week or two while gradually bringing back some verbal cueing to get her to respond to that in addition to the food toss. “Get it” could be a cue you use right before you toss the treat. This preps her to go get the food. It creates anticipation of the food coming and increases her motivation to get the treat. Oh, and it does not increase jumping like ignoring does! I’d use this strategy to shape my dog to stay on the floor while having a good time and interacting with me in this new predictable way. Everybody wins and there’s no need to punish the dog at all. She’s having fun and so am I. She gets to eat part of her dinner as I help her to cope with her pent up energy and strong desire to interact socially in this new way that does not involve any behavior that I don’t like. Bingo! We’ve done it!
Next month, we’ll continue our series on Dog-People greetings, and focus on teaching your dog not to jump up on people you meet while out and about.
