©Scott Sheaffer, CBCC-KA, CDBC, CPDT-KA, USA Dog Behavior, LLC

Dogs jumping on people is the common cold of problematic dog behaviors. I describe it as a benign behavior problem - albeit a behavior problem nonetheless. Dogs who jump on you, your family and friends can really be annoying. Let’s quickly break down:

“By doing this you are rewarding your dog for the ‘four on the floor’ approach to you…”

1) why your dog is doing this.
2) why all the things you’ve tried in the past don’t seem to help.
3) how to address the root cause of the behavior and stop it.

Why Dogs Jump on People

Your dog is not jumping on people because they think jumping is fun. If your dog thought jumping was a fun behavior they would be jumping up on all kinds of things around the house (e.g., walls), but they don’t. Why? Because the joy of jumping is not why they are jumping on humans.

Your dog is jumping on you and others to get attention. Your dog likes interacting with people; this jumping behavior gets them the human attention they crave. This is not a bad motivation, but it is an annoying dog behavior.

This dog behavior is technically known as a demand or attention-getting behavior. It may be more broadly classified as an unruly behavior. This dog behavior can in some instances be associated with some types of canine aggression and other behavioral issues, but for this article we’ll focus on attention-getting as the root cause which represents the vast majority of cases.

Why Nothing You’ve Tried Stops the Behavior

Your dog continues to do this behavior (in some cases for many years) because you are unintentionally reinforcing the behavior in three ways - 1) looking, 2) touching and 3) talking. When your dog jumps on you and you look, touch or talk to them, you are giving them the attention they are seeking. Thus the behavior is reinforced.

The following are some of the things I commonly see people use to try to keep their dog from jumping on humans - they rarely work.

Tell the dog “no jump”. The problem is that “no jump” (or any other verbiage used) is talking to the dog and reinforces the behavior.
Kick the dog in the forechest or otherwise physically punish, push or pull the dog when they are jumping up. While the dog may not appreciate this, many dogs simply consider this unpleasant touching a worthwhile tradeoff in order to get the attention they want.

Effectively Addressing the Root Cause of Jumping

There are three steps to stop this behavior:

When your dog jumps on you (or others) you are not to look, touch or talk to the dog. When you do this, you are effectively removing the reinforcement for the behavior. Technically this is called extinguishing a behavior; you’re removing the fuel. This is harder than it sounds because humans react to things we don’t like. It’s hard to ignore things we find annoying. You’ll find your dog will attempt the jumping behavior for less than 10 seconds before abandoning it because it isn’t working for them.

If done correctly and all humans are on board with the no look, touch, talk rule, this behavior will subside significantly in a week for most dogs.

You may find the jumping behavior gets worse for a little while when you start completely ignoring the behavior. Your dog is thinking, “Jumping up on people used to work; I must need to do it more.” This is completely common and is called an extinction burst. This escalation of behavior will usually pass quickly.
“Okay Scott, I get it; ignore the behavior.” But there’s another very important step. While you are extinguishing the jumping behavior by no longer reinforcing it, you need to build a new desirable behavior by reinforcing it. That desirable behavior is to approach you for your attention with all paws on the ground. Your dog still needs your attention.

You do this by rewarding your dog by quickly looking, touching and talking to them when they stop jumping on you (remember, the jumping behavior will last less than 10 seconds if it isn’t reinforced).

If they approach you and never do jump up on you, be sure to look, touch and talk to them too. This is very important to do. By doing this you are rewarding your dog for the “four on the floor” approach to you while giving them the attention they want. Everyone is winning here.

There are six other common attention-getting or demand behaviors in addition to jumping. They are: mouthing, licking, vocalizing, muzzle nudging, pawing, initiating play. The root cause for these dog behaviors is also the need for human attention and they are all addressed in a similar way.