Unwanted Jumping: put it on cue and stop giving the cue

Photo by Dycie Jo Photography

It's really easy to accidentally teach your dog to jump up on people, or rather to reinforce them for doing it. Puppies do it very naturally and it's so cute and tempting to respond to when they are puppies. But when those puppies become adults it can become a real problem. And this was a problem with Hera.

I started with some training videos on the Kikopup Youtube Channel. The basic idea was 1. think about what you do want them to do and teach them to do that (it's hard for an animal to understand a negative and you have no control over what they do instead). and 2. don't reinforce jumping ("be a tree", don't give any attention, even yelling, for the jumping behavior )

First I dealt with Hera jumping on the gate when I approach the pasture. Zeus is always there with her but he is really calm so if she looked like she wanted to jump I first praised Zeus and gave him treats for being calm. She figured that out quickly and sat down; then she would get her treat. I also would not even touch the gate latch unless both dogs had four feet on the ground. The gate opening is reinforcing to her, so treats are not even necessary for the use of gate-jumping. I just like using Zeus as an example because sometimes it makes things move a little faster

When the gate was not involved I always tried the "be a tree", but I also tried to tell her to sit before she reached me so she would have an alternative behavior. The sit wasn't really working very well though. I got her when she was 5 months old so she's really just been a puppy all this time and puppies have SO much energy. I felt like I needed to channel it and give her an out somehow.

I remembered reading in Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor that she got dolphins to stop obnoxious behavior by putting it on cue, and then quit giving the cue. I decided to try that instead.

It was extremely easy to put it on cue. I used the cue "hug". I still told her to sit first, but once she did that I rewarded her with the cue for "hug" (this is using a behavior chain which I'll write about elsewhere). This way her jumping was controlled but she still got to relieve her excitement. I later changed it to "jump up" and instead of putting her paws on me I'd have her jump straight in the air. (I started this in the spring because I wasn't wearing snow gear anymore and muddy paws are no fun). The "jump up" was even better because my kids could use it and not worry about her knocking them over.

Cue for "jump up".

This approach worked really well for me. She quit jumping up on me almost entirely. However, she was still jumping up on new people and sometimes my kids because they aren't as precise with cues and training. I brought up the question with a dog training group and some of them told me that giving the cue to jump was a bad idea because it's still rewarding the behavior, even though it's more controlled.

I was hesitant to drop it because it worked with me, and I liked that she could still get her energy out. But even the book I read said to stop giving the cue once the behavior was reliably on cue. So I stopped giving the cue, even though it was fun. It really has made a difference and her jumping is getting rarer and rarer. And when I started teaching a right/left shake I realized why.

Many trained animals will start offering every behavior they have ever been rewarded for when they are seeking a reward. With Hera, jumping was one of those behaviors, and a favorite so she was more likely to choose it over others. After I started working on a right/left shake frequently it became her new "go to" behavior and now instead of jumping to try and gets treats she starts offering her paw. Much more desirable than jumping! (Except the time her paw landed on my baby's head).

So, lesson learned. Put the undesirable behavior on cue, then stop giving the cue. What a great tool!