Bit of advice about a pair of very bouncy dogs :)

[Hotpotpie]

possibly its not something we can change but worth an ask!

I have a 2 year old Whippet and a 13 month old great dane, both are beautiful lively dogs who love visitors and get far far too excited, more the whippet than the dane at the moment but they jump all over visitors for the first few minutes when people arrive (or I come home) we have been trying to calm them down for a while, but we are totally clueless and its been a case of shutting them away for a bit in one of the other rooms and introducing them slowly to visitors but its not been very successful the pair of them are still bouncing all over the place

Two problems have arisen, 1, im pregnant so although its only the whippet that does it to me (hes my spoilt little baby) I need to address this before my bump gets any bigger and 2. the dane is weighing in at over 10 stone these days so hes a bit heavy and a lot intimidating if you have never met him before

has anyone got any ideas that me and OH can try?

Clicker training sounds good. There are lots of people on here who know the best ways of doing it, and also there are lots of ways of learning on the net. The BEST way would be to go to dog training classes. I'm surprised you haven't already done this with such a young, and such a big dog.

You can definitely change it!

When the dog jumps on you, fold your arms and turn away. Don't say anything to it. Most dogs learn pretty quickly from this, because they are jumping to get attention. When it has all four paws on the ground, then you can make a fuss or give a treat.

It will learn not to jump on you first, and will need to have the same experience with others in order to generalize it to not jumping. Maybe you have some regular visitors who you can ask to do the same thing?

What do you do when visitors arrive, do you make sure the dogs are sitting calmly before you open the door? There are several other things you can do - some people teach a 'place' command to a dog so that it goes to a place and stays there, other people teach a 'say hi' command which involves the dog going up to the person and sniffing their hand.

We tried dog training classes, unfortunately it was such a big group that we hardly got to try anything we learned, lots of sitting around which ored the dane rigid, couple that with the fact that the whippet humps everything that moves and we stopped in the end, cant say as we felt that we made any great progress while we were there, we have worked on the techniques at home though and both dogs are well behaved on their leads, in the house with us they both respond well to commands etc we just cannot seem to sort the door business out

RedwingWinter I have tried that before but probably not stuck with it long enough so Ill certainly give it a try again, they both understand the bed command and will comply unless we have visitors I have just found out that I have a mutual friend that helps with one to one dog training so I think I might give her a whirl as well

Thanks guys

Sorry, I was a bit snappy on the last post.

Good luck with the stern arm folding!

to be fair I didnt take it that way katharine but yes I think there will be some generalised ignoring of the dogs going on for the next few weeks to see if it helps, started off this morning and the whippet is not amused lol

got them both curled up flat out next to me now if only they knew what I was plotting..........

Good luck with it, Hotpotpie. I think persistence is the key; they will get it in the end. It's good that you know a trainer, I hope they can help speed up the process.

The ignoring definately works, my SBT jumps around like a loon when certain people come in, she doesn't do itt to me or Ds1 though!
Because we ignore her when we first come in she knows to wait for a hello.

Dh on the other hand encourages the bouncing

We have a very bouncy 16 month old and I have to admit I haven't entirely solved the jumping at me, even with the ignoring. But she does know what she is meant to do and once she realises I am ignoring (usually after she has leapt all over me) she sits, quivering with every fibre of her body to be made a fuss of!

Visitors I've had more success with. I always say "On your bed!" and hold a treat. She finds it very, very hard to stay there and not rush to them, (once again she sits literally shaking with excitement) but she now achieves it 90% of the time. I think the idea of having a place your dog has to go to before you open the door, and stay there for a treat, is a good one. It helps if you have one person who can stand near the dog and keep reminding them to stay whilst the other opens the door, at least in the early stages.