Jumping on strangers

To start off with, I really wanted to take Ollie to the local obedience club but as I can't get there on my own and my parents won't take me I haven't been able to

Ollie is a really friendly boy and loves everyone he meets! This can be a problem because when I'm walking him he jumps up around people. His on the leash so I can just pull him down, but that isn't the point. He looks quite out of control and I don't want him to scare anyone. He does it to small children as well but around them I have to keep the leash very tight.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can keep his 4 feet ON the ground during walks?

Thanks everyone :flwr:

oh gosh, sorry i don't have any advice for you right now... i can only sympathize with you because we are having the same problem right now w/ maggie!!

she loooves running up to strangers who give her the slightest bit of attention... so she runs to them as if she's known them forever!!! and then she'll jump on them, and they just reinforce the behavior because they love it and they pet her like crazy!! it's getting a little frustrating... and she too does it to little kids, so i also have to keep a short leash on her w/ them, since they are so short and she's getting so much taller now. so i do understand your problem!

also when we're training her, i've been noticing that she'll jump up for her treat. so now we're not giving her a treat while she jumps like that. i don't know if that will help... but yes, she's been very jumpy lately. more than ever...

she is going to obedience class later this month, so i hope that will help her learn some manners... do you know when/if your parents will be able to help you get ollie to a class in the future??

best of luck!! hope you can find good advice from the others :xfngr:

Hi Emily

You can control this by teaching Ollie to sit or drop. The idea is that when people approach, you give him the command and then they can pet him.

Having said that, both my Cavaliers jump up on people when they visit the house and Beau jumps up on everyone at puppy school. So I have to practice what I preach.

I find this a bit of a perplexing thing though as I love my guys running & jumping up on me, but I don't want them to do it to other people. So maybe what I could do is teach my dogs to jump up on invitation only.

Anybody else got some ideas on this?

No advice, sorry,-- I can't imagine having this problem. Oliver wants NOTHING to do with strangers at all!! I can't imagine him actually running up to someone he didn't know--people try to pet him in the park and he wants nothing to do with them!
Good luck!!

Thanks everyone!!! Sometimes people are in such a rush they even ignore little Ollie, can you imagine!! :yikes :lol:

I don't want to have him sit or drop everytime we walk past someone, which happens about 10+ times per walk!

Thanks to everyone whose posted, any advice (or support ) is better than none! :flwr:

Oh ok, so the problem is not when people stop to talk to him, it is when he is walking past people. The way to deal with this then is to teach Ollie "heel" and to keep his attention on you. If you've got a friend with a dog you can practice this, or if not you'll have to just do it on the street as people are passing....

So you tell Ollie "heel" and step off with your left foot. Have a treat in your hand and ensure Ollie knows you've got it. That will get his attention. As someone starts to approach you, you hold the treat out in front of Ollie's nose so he is focused on the treat and when you have passed the person you give him the treat. It might be best to practice this in a street with not too many people passing initially. We do this in puppy training. We walk past each other, keeping our dogs attention on us, not the other person. We also weave in & out of each other with our dogs. The idea is that everyone keeps their dog focussed on them, and the one doing the weaving also keeps their dog focused, so there is no interaction between the dog & the people we are passing.

This is where puppy classes are great as this problem come under the area of socialisation. Anyway, the key is to make yourself more interesting than the people you are passing on the street.

Good luck!

Thanks Caraline! I'll try that today and see how it goes Wish I could get Ollie to an obedience class! The only problem is it would take me about 2 hours to walk there

The other command we have learned is "look" or "look at me". If you can teach this one you could also use it when passing people & dogs. So this one is probably easiest to teach when Ollie is nearby. Have your treat ready, and when he is say looking at something else, you say "look" and as soon as he turns around & looks into your eyes you give the treat. Basically this is the command that gets the dogs attention on us and not on other things around us.

Everyone above has given great advice.

My boys used to do this same thing when on walks...always jump up and act a bit crazy-friendly when they met strangers..luckily they never seemed to jump up at very small kids (no clue why)....i didnt mind this happening to me or friends but some people are scared of dogs etc so i wanted to stop this happening so at home whenever they would jump up at me i would just act bored and totally ignore them until they realised they had to stop jumping up to get my attention..and then i made them sit and made a huge fuss over them...after a while they got the message and now whenever we see anyone on walks they imediately sit when they want to be patted. though at home they still jump up at me (i give in really easy )...

the ways posted above seem better than what i did anyway so dont listen to me

So pleased you asked this question

Love this forum, the questions in my head are already being asked. Reading all the advice with great interset and going to practise tonight. Harvey is an absolute disaster to walk with he loves strangers especially children. Big show off knows how cute he is... Just hoping he isn't trying to escape us Glad we didn't want a guard dog he licks everyone to death!!! I feel your distress with this problem.....

Caraline said:

So you tell Ollie "heel" and step off with your left foot.

Click to expand...

I know the actual word doesn't matter, but I prefer 'close'. It's a little more intimate than 'heel' which makes me think of men demanding obedience, rather than earning it, from big dogs.

Oh yes, it can be fun to have your own personalised commands too. Have you read "Marley & Me"? The author's command for drop was "Incoming!" :lol:

I've not read it, yet, but mean to, together with some others.