Training a High Energy Flat Coat Retriever Collie mix to Stop Jumping on People

By: David Codr

Published Date: November 5, 2017

Mack Santa Monica Flat Coat - Training a High Energy Flat Coat Retriever Collie mix to Stop Jumping on People

For this Santa Monica dog training session we trained 4 year-old Flat Coat Retriver Collie mix Mack to stop jumping and being an excited dog.

Buy oh boy is this one high energy dog. Mack took over a half hour to calm down and finally chill out on the floor. I spent the first part of the session suggesting different ways to increase Mack’s daily exercise, especially early in the day.

Having a Dalmatian at home, I have found one of the best ways to drain excess energy in an excited dog is what I like to call Dogskiing. You can catch me in dog skiing action in this story the local news recently ran with me.

Im really hoping that the guardian takes up my dog skiing suggestion as the beach boardwalk between Santa Monica and Venice is only a few blocks away. Not only will this very effectively drain Mack’s excess energy, its a lot of fin and a great way o start your day.

To address Mack’s excitement and jumping behavior at the door when guests arrive, I handed my camera to one of the guardians so I could show them my new technique to stop a dog from jumping on people.

While Mack didn’t jump up on me while filming, I have used this technique quite effectively for my own dog and the clients I have shared it with have had equal success.

I suggested that the guardians invite friends over to practice this technique. Training a dog to stop jumping on guests with this approach is easy, it just takes practice. Setting up situations where they can practice with people in on it makes teaching a dog to stop jumping much easier.

A number of the other dog training secrets I shared in the session will help stop this jumping dog behavior when guests arrive as well as mellowing out overall. There were a ton of tiny things the humans were doing that confused Mack (being petted when excited, invading their space or jumping) into thinking his jumping and excitement were ok.

Once Mack learns that he can make his humans happy to see him without being so excited, and his guardians add in more structure and exercise, he should be able to adopt more desired behaviors in no time. His days of jumping up on people will only be a distant memory.

By the end of the session, Mack was showing respect for personal space and his guardians were starting to use the new dog behavior techniques to more effectively communicate with him. Seeing the transformation take place right in front of you is one of the best things about being a Santa Monica dog behavior expert.

Before we ended this in home dog training session, I handed my phone to the guardians to film a roadmap to success video summering many of the positive dog training tips and suggestions I shared with them in this session.

My reminder message about needing to feed the parking meeter (I have gotten too many $64 tickets in Santa Monica for sessions that ran a little long!) interrupted the roadmap to success video. I would have merged the videos together before posting them here but Youtube dumped their combining video option so you can catch the last bit of these dog behavior tips in the video below.

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This post was written by: David Codr