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Hi people

I live on a farm and we have three dogs, Beagle, german shepherd and a Rottweiler. We keep them in a fenced in area and when ever we walk in through the gate, the german shepherd starts bouncing around and jumping up, scratching us and covering us in mud.
Does anyone have any suggestions/ideas how we can train the dog to stay on all 4s?

Hi Vancheese,
Its hard to say without knowing the dog but all jumping up is self rewarding for a dog. As you have other dogs too it usually is an attention thing. The dog is jumping to be the first to get your attention. If you push him down and say no its still rewarding for the dog because it has the contact with you it craved.

What i would suggest is ignore the behaviour. Dont give eye contact,dont talk to the dog,dont push him down. Totally ignore this behaviour. Your dog must earn your attention (I know to some this may seem a little harsh but in a very short period of time this should work) and only reward, as you say, when... "all paws are on the floor".
A dog will carry on jumping if it can get your attention by doing so.
I know it is quite hard to ignore but if you approach the issue with a calm,relaxed attitude,you should have a calm,relaxed dog in no time.

Hope this helps.

I had a dog that did that and the dog trainer told me to pretend I was going to fall onto him, lunge forward with my arms out as if I was going to fall and sad loudly and firmly "I'm going to fall on you" I know it sounds mad - but it worked - in fact it was the only thing that did work on the damn dog - he was so bad he was almost expelled from training classes!

We have a young excitable border collie and we had to do some serious training with him to stop him from jumping up at people, as he roams freely across our land and is often the first to meet our neighbours when they approach the house, a worry as they are mostly elderly and some quite frail.

I would suggest you separate your German Shepherd from the other dogs in order to do the training.

What I did was approach the dog, with no eye contact and no words of greeting, as soon as he got excited and looked as though he was going to jump up, I would turn my back to him, if he continued I would walk away.

When he settled down again, I would approach again, if he got excited I would turn my back, wait for him to calm and if he did not I would walk away. After repeating this quite a few times, he would stay sat with his tail wagging madly, then I would treat him, if he jumped up again - I would say 'NO' and walk away.

I would only 'greet' him, when I had approached him, and he remained sat. Then he would get a 'good boy' and a treat.

Now anyone can approach him, his bum stays on the floor, he wags his tail madly, but he does not jump up.

You need to show the dog the behaviour you want, and reward it when it happens.

theabsinthefairy wrote:his bum stays on the floor, he wags his tail madly, but he does not jump up.

You need to show the dog the behaviour you want

Sorry taf, I've got visions of you demonstrating the behaviour you want

Try these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fAD2T_bAdY

http://www.squidoo.com/stopdogsjumping

HTH
Ruth

Green Aura wrote:

theabsinthefairy wrote:his bum stays on the floor, he wags his tail madly, but he does not jump up.

You need to show the dog the behaviour you want

Sorry taf, I've got visions of you demonstrating the behaviour you want

Never thought of it that way GA - hmmmm - perhaps that would have worked quicker!