Your dog jumps on everyone

Dog jumping up

Off means get off someone or something. That's our standard.

Jumping up is a way for a dog to engage with you, engage with somebody else, or go surf counters or get on furniture. It's hard not to pick a puppy up when they jump on you for attention. But now they're bigger, and you don't like it or want it. So maybe you started pushing them off, raising your voice, using your knee — to no avail. Now you and anybody who comes to your home has to deal with your embarrassing dog. So you're putting your dog away before company comes over. And here you are.

Why is your dog jumping on people?

Jumping up is your dog engaging and telling you something about itself. A dog that jumps up on you at home may be showing you confidence or arrogance. A dog that jumps up in a new place may be telling you the opposite — it's uncertain, and it's coming to you for help. Same jumping behavior, different dogs, different reasons.

What they have in common is that the jumping pays. Your dog wants your face, your hands, your attention, and jumping gets all three. The knee, the shout, the push — that's still attention. You're reinforcing the behavior, and your dog banks it.

Pushing a dog off does something worse. It turns a greeting into a contest, or into conflict depending on your dog's temperament, and that contest can cost you the relationship. Turning your back doesn't work either, because your movement makes your dog chase your face, and that winds up a dog that's already excited.

None of it shows your dog what actually pays.

How we stop the jumping

We make four feet on the floor the only thing that pays, and we take the conflict out of the greeting.

First your dog's temperament is evaluated — drives, disposition, engagement. The confident jumper and the uncertain jumper get different work, and the evaluation tells us which one is at your door.

Then your dog gets a map: the foundation first, the focus and handling a greeting depends on, then chapter 32 itself. And we brief your whole household, because a dog does the math fast when every person holds the same line, and just as fast when one person doesn't.

The finished picture isn't a dog that ignores your guests. It's a dog that's happy to see them with all four feet down, and off there the moment you need it.

20+ years · author of Building A Solid Canine · every dog is evaluated first

Two ways to start.

Bring your dog to a Saturday.

Garrett reads your dog live at the Saturday workshop in Placerville, CA — that's a Working Evaluation, $200. You get the full day, the printed workbook and the full book, and your dog's written route through it. Every dog is evaluated first. Bite histories welcome with honest disclosure.

Or we come to you.

An In-Home Session at your house, up to two hours, with the same workbook, book, and written route.