Tips to Teach a Dog to Stop Jumping on People and Calm Itself Down Instead

For this Los Angeles dog training session, we teach 1 year-old French Bulldog Teddy to calm himself down when people come to the door and stop him from jumping at the kids when on the trampoline.

Knowing that one of Teddy’s dog behavior problems was that he liked to jump up on gas to come to the door, I called ahead and gave his guardian some instructions.

She met me outside so that I can hand her my phone and record the technique I use to stop dogs from jumping up on people.

The great thing about this approach to stop dog jumping is the dog learns to calm itself down, own its own. By waiting for the dog to return to a calm state of mind before engaging with it, I was able to communicate to Teddy that I was only interested in him when he was calm.

Many people confuse excitement with happiness in dogs. But excitement is an unbalanced state and that is when a dog is most apt to make mistakes. The wonderful thing about this exercise to stop dog jumping is you dont have to be a professional French Bulldog trainer to do it. In fact, this approach works for dogs of all breeds.

Once Teddy was completely calm, I took off the leash and then sat down with his family to discuss a few other dog behavior problems that he had. I showed them how to motivate Teddy to offer desired actions and behaviors through passive training, how to redirect him into them through petting with a purpose as well as the importance of rules in the dog world.

One of Teddy’s other dog problems was that he tended to run away anytime his guardians pulled out the leash and harness. I quickly showed them how to use a Conditioned Emotional Response or CER to help Teddy feel good about it and actually put the harness on himself.

Another activity that got Teddy all fired up and jumping was when the kids played on the trampoline. I pulled out some high value training treats and show to the guardians how they can use counter conditioning to help Teddy practice being calm and watching the kids play on the trampoline rather than running and jumping after them.

I almost did too good of job of stopping teddies jumping in the above free dog training video, LOL. Next time I’ll remember to have the dog demonstrate the behavior before we put the fix in place.

Stopping dog jumping on people is all about creating situations where the dog can learn a new behavior while they are in a calm and balanced state of mind.

Teddy is a great little dog, he was just confused about where his position was in the family and what they expected out of him. Now they know how to add rules and structure to help him feel comfortable, how to increase his exercise and reward desired behaviors, Teddy should start behaving the way that they want pretty quickly.

To help the guardians remember all of the various dog psychology and dog behavior tips I shared in this in home dog training session, we filmed a roadmap to success video that you can watch below.