Stop Your Puppy Jumping Up

Learning how to stop a puppy from jumping up is something you need to get onto straight away.

Puppies jumping up are a very natural thing that they do when they are little – to get attention – and in the wild to get fed by licking the Mother's face to encourage food to be regurgitated. Showing your puppy that it does not get attention when it jumps is something that you should encourage from a very early age. Often it can seem like fun when a puppy is very small but when your dog grows to 35kg and can jump 5 foot high it is not so funny.

If you do not stop the jumping when your puppy is little then when your puppy turns into a larger dog it soon turns into a more dominant display of demanding your attention!

1. If your puppy is jumping up, simply turn and walk away. Ignore your puppy, no eye contact, no speaking and no touching.
2. Continue to ignore and then after your puppy has calmed down, wait for 5 minutes and then call your puppy to you.
3. If your puppy does not stop then isolate your puppy by either leaving the room or by putting the puppy in another room.

Puppy jumping up on visitors:

• If your puppy is jumping on your visitors then ask them to do the same as described above. It may also help if you hold the puppy by its collar or on a lead until they relax – then release. If your puppy decides to mouth you then you should immediately isolate them in another room or a crate.

Puppy jumping up at you when you are getting ready for the walk:

• Put the leash down and wait for 10 minutes or until your puppy is calm, then try again. This is important and although you are keen to go for a walk you should not rush it!

Important concepts:

• It is really important not to speak – to stay calm and not say a word when your puppy jumps up. Remember your puppy is an attention-seeking machine!
• Your puppy's jumping up and space invading is not its way of saying I love you!!
• Space is very important to a dog and if she can invade yours whenever she wants then she will lose respect for you.
• How would you feel if a human constantly invaded your space! It is more similar than you think!!
• Start as you mean to go on. When your puppy is calm then you can call her and pick her up for a cuddle
• When you are ignoring your puppy keep your arms folded and walk past the puppy confidently and assertively.

The two most common mistakes:

1. Inconsistency – sometimes puppy jumping up is given attention!
2. People make eye contact…This invites your puppy over, so do not make eye contact, focus on something else.

Another trick that will help is to train your puppy to sit for everything! If you can get your puppy to practise lots of "sits" then her default behaviour will simply be to sit when you call her, and not jump!

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