Teaching a High Energy Puppy to Stop Jumping on People

By: David Codr

Published Date: September 10, 2018

Max and Aspen - Teaching a High Energy Puppy to Stop Jumping on People

For this Omaha dog training session, we were called in to stop a pair of excitable dogs (7 year-old Yellow Lab Max and his room mate, 11 month-old Golden Retriever Aspen) from jumping up on people or getting too excited to listen.

We started off as soon as I walked in the door. Knowing the dogs liked to jump up on guests, I called ahead of my arrival to have the guardian put Max out back so we could focus on one dog at a time. I do this with all the multi-dog houses I work with, not just when Im working as a Golden Retriever trainer.

You can watch me train a dog to stop jumping up on houseguests in the free dog training video below.

Part of the reason that dogs jump up on people is overexcitement. We spent the first part of the session going over some creative ways to deplete the dog’s excess energy. I suggested they keep an exercise journal annotating the frequency, quantity and duration of exercise sessions sprinkled throughout the day. That way they can vary the exercise activities until they come up with the right combination that helps Aspen feel calm and balanced.

These are common puppy problems for dogs who are under exercised, not just those facing today’s Golden Retriever puppy trainer.

Next I had the guardians put Aspen out back so I could show them a different approach to help a dog learn to calm itself down when guests come to the door. Basically I opened the inside door, then waited outside the screen door for Max to calm down. Once he did, I reached for the handle which got him excited again.

I kept repeating this reach, stop, wait process until Max stayed calm throughout the whole ordeal. Id like to see the guardians ask a friend or neighbor drop by every other day to practice this approach to help a dog learn to calm itself down. This works with all dogs, not just those I see as a Yellow Lab trainer.

While both dogs had issues, Aspen’s were pretty normal for an under exercised puppy. The increased exercise should do wonders and hopefully stop her from latching onto Max’s cheek to ask him to play with her.

While he is the better behaved dog, Max had some dog behavior issues too. He didn’t listen to his guardians as well as Id like to see and had difficulty with self control.

To help Max see and respect his guardians and also help him practice some self control, I walked his guardians through the Leadership Exercise I developed years ago. Id like to see both guardians practice this exercise once daily with each dog for the next week or two. This should really help reduce his invading people’s personal space and also develop a healthy leader follower dynamic.

The guardians wanted to address the dog’s pulling on the leash (the reason they aren’t walked anymore), but these dogs foundation needed to be set first. I told the guardians we need to schedule an in home dog training session with our lead trainer James in a month to address that problem.

To help the guardians remember all the dog behavior tips I shared with them, we shot a roadmap to success video.

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This post was written by: David Codr