# Getting Hyper and Jumping at People



## CAROLINA MOM (May 12, 2009)

Bumping up


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## goldielynn (Sep 5, 2020)

You probably know that this is a training issue: the more you let him practice jumping, the harder it will be to break him of the habit. We have a very sociable puppy as well, and at 6 months, we're working on his jumping. It's hard, but we're making headway, and we're so happy.

We're with you on people wanting to pet your dog, and you can't provide instruction like "ignore my dog, etc.," and if you believe that your dog will jump on someone else, you need to step on his leash close enough to his collar where he can't jump up. Do this a few times, and he's going to think twice about doing it. Immediately, he won't want to jump, which will give the person an opportunity to pet.

Also, what we learned in puppy school, and it's going to take time, but if you have friends that your dog jumps on, they should not pet him unless all four paws are on the ground or in a sitting position. If he tries to jump up (while you're holding the leash), your friend should back up. Your dog might just then sit or whine, and when he's sitting, they can come closer to try to pet. If your dog tries to jump up again, the person should back up. Repeat, repeat, and repeat until your dog is calm enough to pet.

Lastly, we try to avoid coming into contact with strangers on the street, and if someone comes up close to us, we tell him to "leave it" which means he can't go greet them because again, we don't want him to practice naughty behaviors. It will take you time, but stick with it, and you'll see improvement.


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## goldy1 (Aug 5, 2012)

GoldenMame 
Very difficult because Jamie is a big boy now and naturally you would like 4 on the floor. I also have young but exuberant boys. My one is very excitable and jumps for that reason - new people push him over threshold. Well new anything puts him over threshold.. My other one is less excitable but will jump the minute the person seems like an easy going mark. But he will listen when I tell him off. But by that time he could have hurt someone.
One of our trainers said treat everyone approaching as if they are 90 y.o., wearing white, and your dog is muddy.

goldielynn's advice is right on. Never give Jamie the opportunity to make a mistake. So if someone asks "can I pet your dog?" - you have to decide. you can ask them to wait while you get the leash positioned, ask and expect him to sit, and then tell the person to come to him when you have control and he is sitting. Always have his most favorite treats with you when you go out. And this also assumes that he has a good sit/stay when not in a hyper-excitable state.

Train, train, train this behavior, Great rewards come with 4 on the floor. Ignoring comes with jumping. What you want to do is make the sit/stay his default behavior from which all good things come.

If it sounds impossible today, do not be discouraged. I still have breakthrough jumping with my excitable boy and he is a year and a half! Jamie will get there. There are worse things - believe me. That's not to excuse this behavior but just to put it into perspective. When I know my boy is just too excitable for whatever reason to be successful with the meet an greet, I am honest and say he is just too excitable and I don't want him to jump and hurt you. I'd rather do that than allow him to reinforce the behavior.

Enrolling -even repeatedly - in a class will give you new people to practice with under the guidance of a trainer. And you will hone your skills at reading him as well.

Give Jamie a big hug - he is adorable.


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## ComeBackShane (Mar 20, 2021)

GoldenMame said:


> 2. At dog parks, he'll get super excited at other dog owners and jump up at them, lick them excessively, displays a big creasing smile, and pants fast. We try to stay close and tell him a firm "No" when he jumps up, but haven't found a way to prevent it. I've read that given a sociable dog like ours, ignoring him is the best; but given our situation, it's not realistic to ask all dog owners to cooperate with us and ignore him when he jumps.


This might seem a bit blunt, but I don't understand why enlisting others to help extinguish you dogs jumping is unrealistic. I enlist other dog owners to help with training scenarios all of the time. It's not only realistic to enlist peoples help, it's necessary of you want some behaviors to stop or you want interactions with other dogs to go smoothly, leading to an increase in the dog's confidence rather than leaving the dog at risk of increasing levels of stress/reactivity due to interactions that got more distressing than they needed to (Your Golden will thank you for their fuller to live of being welcomed in a far greater range of social situations).
When you allow an unwanted behavior to continue you provide repeated opportunities for that behavior to become much more deeply ingrained.
Never allow another jump to be greeted with anything other than arms being folded (so you don't reach for the dog in a move that is often misinterpreted by the dog as reciprocal play) on you way to turning to face directly away from the dog. The dog wants interaction and you (and EVERYONE ELSE) must first stop providing interaction when "asked" inappropriately.
The next part is easy. excited praise and attention for dogs that ask appropriately. In my case that would be the dog calmly seating and looking at the person, then waiting for the person to decide to scratch them - or to issue another command, sit, go to your place, etc.
I'm working with my third adult rescue. The first (a large and strong one year-old female) with little to no training and who knocked over every she multiple times a day. Denying her attention when she had asked for it inappropriately was fast, effective and greatly improved her quality of life. I found that most everyone we encountered was eager to help her learn to live a richer life. 
Best of luck!


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## goldy1 (Aug 5, 2012)

ComeBackSham provides some great solid suggestions.
The Fuller Life is SOOO true and so worthy of hard work in the early days.

Absolutely enlist help of others. There are only 2 caveats I would make:

enlist the help of "knowledgeable" helper-people (notice ComeBackSham specifically mentions other "dog owners"). Some people you meet will not understand how this behavior has to be handled in order for it to be overcome and will not truly "help" you. This is why taking repeat classes with new classmates works well. Everyone is there in class to help their dogs have a better life.

no "excited" praise and attention when he asks appropriately. Because Jamie is exciteable to begin with, just quiet soothing praise & attention would be the way to go with Jamie. If I gave my excitable boy "excited" praise (which totally works with calmer dogs), it would trigger the "excitement" response again - not what I'm after . I say "gooood boy" in a quiet soothing tone while giving him his most favored goodie. And elongate the time to give the treat. Expect a longer calmer sit while the stranger is petting him. In the beginning, you may only be able to allow the person to touch him and you will need to reinforce with "goooood boy", give the treat, and move Jamie along. After several months, Jamie may sit for longer periods of being petted by strangers - knowing the drill - that he will be rewarded following it (delayed gratification). Just learn to read him so you can move him along or step on the leash at the first sign he is ready to pop up.

And keep at the forefront of your mind, Jamie is now building his foundation of life skills. He is still just a youngster and life around him is exciting. Someday we are all faced with "senior" issues and would move heaven and earth to get the early years back. Love him for his good traits. Before meeting with new trainers, I always write lists (for myself) of things we need to work on. Then I make another list of all the things they are already good at or have already accomplished or overcome. Even things that they were just good at naturally. The good list is always WAY longer than the "issues" list and it puts a nice perspective on my expectations. Also gratitude for the boys I have.


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## GoldenMame (Mar 12, 2020)

goldielynn said:


> You probably know that this is a training issue: the more you let him practice jumping, the harder it will be to break him of the habit. We have a very sociable puppy as well, and at 6 months, we're working on his jumping. It's hard, but we're making headway, and we're so happy.
> 
> We're with you on people wanting to pet your dog, and you can't provide instruction like "ignore my dog, etc.," and if you believe that your dog will jump on someone else, you need to step on his leash close enough to his collar where he can't jump up. Do this a few times, and he's going to think twice about doing it. Immediately, he won't want to jump, which will give the person an opportunity to pet.
> 
> ...


Thank you for your reply! We will practice the "leave it" when we come across strangers on the street more. He's gotten better with strangers on the street, but I need to continue to train him to not overreact.


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## GoldenMame (Mar 12, 2020)

goldy1 said:


> GoldenMame
> Very difficult because Jamie is a big boy now and naturally you would like 4 on the floor. I also have young but exuberant boys. My one is very excitable and jumps for that reason - new people push him over threshold. Well new anything puts him over threshold.. My other one is less excitable but will jump the minute the person seems like an easy going mark. But he will listen when I tell him off. But by that time he could have hurt someone.
> One of our trainers said treat everyone approaching as if they are 90 y.o., wearing white, and your dog is muddy.
> 
> ...


Thank you! I like the idea of thinking of anyone approaching as 90 years old with a white outfit haha. That changes the mindset and makes me hold his leash tighter when we we are on the street...very good suggestion on controlling him before allowing anyone to pet him too. Thank you and hope you have a nice day.


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## GoldenMame (Mar 12, 2020)

ComeBackShane said:


> This might seem a bit blunt, but I don't understand why enlisting others to help extinguish you dogs jumping is unrealistic. I enlist other dog owners to help with training scenarios all of the time. It's not only realistic to enlist peoples help, it's necessary of you want some behaviors to stop or you want interactions with other dogs to go smoothly, leading to an increase in the dog's confidence rather than leaving the dog at risk of increasing levels of stress/reactivity due to interactions that got more distressing than they needed to (Your Golden will thank you for their fuller to live of being welcomed in a far greater range of social situations).
> When you allow an unwanted behavior to continue you provide repeated opportunities for that behavior to become much more deeply ingrained.
> Never allow another jump to be greeted with anything other than arms being folded (so you don't reach for the dog in a move that is often misinterpreted by the dog as reciprocal play) on you way to turning to face directly away from the dog. The dog wants interaction and you (and EVERYONE ELSE) must first stop providing interaction when "asked" inappropriately.
> The next part is easy. excited praise and attention for dogs that ask appropriately. In my case that would be the dog calmly seating and looking at the person, then waiting for the person to decide to scratch them - or to issue another command, sit, go to your place, etc.
> ...


Thank you for your suggestions. Sometimes there a lot of people at the dog parks so it's difficult to go around and ask everyone to ignore Jamie if he jumps at them but I guess we could go when there are fewer people and dogs e.g. later in the evening. Then when he behaves better we can expand the time we visit the park.


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## cwag (Apr 25, 2017)

You have good advice here. Practice at home with family members approaching and him holding a sit, and every time someone returns home no attention unless he is sitting nicely, turn your back to him until he calms and sits, then outside with a family member, then maybe a neighbor. Make him stay in a sit and have them wait for a calm sit before they approach to pet or give a treat. Standing on the leash helps. Then progress to the park or outside a store. At first you may have to just practice sitting calmly without any one approaching. I have asked people who look interested if they will come over and pet or give a treat while he stays seated and turn away if he gets up or excited. If he finds that every time he gets excited, the people turn away and every time he sits nicely he gets attention or treats in time he will learn to automatically sit. 
Also I would skip the groomer for a time while you work on this and then do a gradual retraining there once he's doing the sit and stay. Maybe drop by and sit outside the door a few times with nothing happening, then ask someone to come out and greet if he stays seated then step in the door, sit and greet until he can do the whole approach calmly. It's all baby steps. The more times you get short practice in the sooner he will get it.


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## Anon-2130948gsoni (Apr 12, 2014)

You’ve gotten wonderful advice. I just wanted to say that, as someone who has had several dogs (not Goldens) over the years who feared and distrusted strangers and had to be managed accordingly, a dog who loves people is a GOOD thing. Yes, he needs to be taught how to channel that appropriately. But really, it’s a lovely quality in a dog!


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## goldielynn (Sep 5, 2020)

GoldenMame said:


> Thank you for your reply! We will practice the "leave it" when we come across strangers on the street more. He's gotten better with strangers on the street, but I need to continue to train him to not overreact.


Yes!! And then when he passes someone and doesn't pull you toward him/her and doesn't try to jump, you can mark with a good boy and lots of pets or reward with a treat. In the beginning, I tried to give strangers on the street a wide berth so as to not be so tempting to my puppy and vice versa (everyone wants to meet and pet with golden puppies)... but after he was good at doing that, I sorta purposely tried to pass by people closer and closer to challenge his learning. He's remarkably better than he was a month ago, but every now and then, if an excited person comes up to pet him, he forgets everything, and jumps on them. And if that happens, we just pull him away, give him a chance to relax and calm down, and reengage.


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## ComeBackShane (Mar 20, 2021)

cwag said:


> ...It's all baby steps. The more times you get short practice in the sooner he will get it.


Look at this as setting your dog up for success. You are learning to trust each other. You need a predictable dog. He has a long list of needs and he depends upon you to meet them. High on that list is his need for a predictable world. At first you enlist people to help at home and then you branch out to places like the park. Keeping the number of people who reinforce his jumping to a minimum (never would be great but...) will speed things up (*going at a time when the park is less crowded is a great idea* as it is a lot harder to enlist everyone in a crowded park - and there are likely a lot of distractions for your dog). As he figures out that jumping won't work with the limited group you are exposing him to at first, he will be less likely to pull out the "let's jump on this person for scratches" trick as that has stopped working.

The last time I dealt with this, I would share the phrase with the people I was enlisting - "Good dogs don't jump, they sit and when they sit, they get scratched (or treats or whatever your dog values)" They usually enjoyed being involved in making my dog's world (and theirs) a slightly better place. Sadie (the wonderful dog that is my avatar) would run from person to person in the park sitting patiently in front of them while looking to them for scratches. Everyone knew her and because she was asking for what she wanted in a polite manner, she almost always got it. To her, the park was for scratches and fetch with the "Chuck It."


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