Kingdom of Pets

Posted by miluna
Jan 18, 2011

Hi,

I have a 4 year old Fox Terrier Mix that we adopted 1 year ago. She's turned into a wonderful family member except she gets very excited when people come over or even when we come home and jumps on us uncontrollably. She was mostly ignored her first few years of life and had very little training. I think she's come a long way except for the jumping. We've tried kneeing her but that only seems to get her more excited as she thinks we're playing. We've tried the turning our backs and ignoring but that doesn't seem to work either. Unfortunately we often have children come over (since I have two kids 8 and 4) and even though we tell them to ignore or not pet her they do it anyway--thus reinforcing the behavior. I'm considering using a shock collar since it's really driving us nuts. She has sharp nails and her jumping has caused some minor scrapes!

Any suggestions are greatly welcome.

Thanks,
Miluna:confused:

Posted by KOPCaroline
Jan 19, 2011

Hi miluna,

Have you thought about crate training your dog? This would certainly be useful for when you come home, if you crate her while you're away, then you can ignore her in her crate when you arrive home again until she's obviously calm. Let her out only when she is calmed down, and if she starts jumping once she's out, put her back in the crate.

If you don't like the idea of crate training, you can put a sort of twist on it. Get a doggie bed for the living room/common area of the house. This is called "(your dogs name)'s bed". Teach her to lay on it whenever you give the command to (can be whatever you like, but something like "bed!", or "time out!", or "go lay down" etc). She should stay on the bed until you give a command that its ok to come play or say hello. As soon as people approach your door, give her the command to go to the bed and have her stay there until the people are settled in your house, and she is calm about their presence. If you think crate training is for you, you can use the crate in the exact same way (give the command "go to your crate!" and "come out" for example).

I would continue with the turning your backs and ignoring her while you consider/start training on one of the above suggestions, but really emphasize your guests do the same. You might also try putting her in a room by herself when people first arrive to your house, and put her back there if you let her out and she starts jumping. Use it as a time out kind of thing, just keeping her in there for 10 minutes or so, so that she can use the time to calm down and be quiet again. If you put her straight back into the room alone as soon as she starts jumping again, she should get the idea that jumping = not fun.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Posted by MaxHollyNoah
Jan 21, 2011

Hi miluna,

I would suggest 2 different methods to correct your FT jumping problem:

First one is for correcting him when you are at home: Whenever someone comes to the door, leash your FT and step on the leash close enough that she has to eiter sit or down. This will make her physically impossible to jump. Have your guest (or kids) greet her when she is still laying down or sitting down. A lot of praise and treat when she greets without jumping.

You have to be consistant so you will have to do this every time so it is kind of pain in a neck but I hope she will figure out soon that she cannot jump at people when she greets.

Second one is when YOU come home: You cannot leash her since she will be already jumping at you. So, I would suggest you carry some treats in your bag or pocket all the time. As you open the door, show her the treat and tell her to sit. (I hope she is somewhat treat-oriented) When she sits greet her and give her the treat. When she stands up and tries to jump, say "Uh uh" and give her a "Sit" command again. You can set this situation up, maybe on a weekend, go outside and come back inside and have her practice this many times.

As the second one goes well, you can do the same when someone comes to the door too. Just have her sit and open the door as you show her a treat.

You will need other people's cooperation so that it will be consistant. Good luck

Jumping Fox Terrier