Bouncy Greeter

[BackToLurk]

Any tips willingly accepted on calming a bouncy greeter. Boo, 6 months, very friendly with dogs and people. But to the extent that he wants to jump up all the time. We're having some success at home as we are consistent, but I'm finding it more challenging outside - not helped by the 'oh I don't mind' people. He's fairly robust & a staffy mix, so I'm also aware that for some people it can be quite alarming. I do keep him on a super short lead and get him to sit as much as possible (I'm not one of those 'don't worry he's friendly' people), but often as soon as someone acknowledges him his trying to leap up.

Walk with a high value treat in your hand. When someone tries to pat him, call his name and reward him with a treat when he comes. Immediately replace the treat in your hand. Having a treat in a bag/pocket means you're a lot slower to reward and you need to be instant with your rewarding when they re young. Usually people get the message when you call your dog back.

If someone tries to approach him/pet him say "sorry. I am training him." Sadly, you have to be really forceful with strangers as their desire to pat random dogs often outweighs their common sense.

I'd also stop letting him greet people full stop until he calms down - he's old enough now that he's been socialised in the key window, so a few weeks without greeting strangers won't do him any harm tbh! Then in a few weeks, restart carefully managed interactions with people you know and trust not to encourage the negative behaviour. Then the second he starts to display the precursors to the negative behaviour (there are always signs, you just need to learn them) you call him away and reward him with a treat.

Should be a quick fix given he's still so young :)

Thank you @Devilshands

When he jumps up, everyone needs to turn their backs and ignore him. He can't get any attention for jumping up or it only reinforces the behaviour.

When he's calm and has all four paws on the floor then he gets attention and/or a treat. If he jumps up again, stop the attention.

An alternative is to scatter treats on the floor so he learns that it's a good and rewarding place to be.

Lots of treats. As you approach someone give your command word to get him to focus on you and reward. I say "look at me" or "at me". Keep him focussed on you and keep rewarding as you get closer, get level and go past. Lots and lots of reward and praise when the whole thing has been achieved. You might be bribing more than rewarding at first but that is fine. My dog occasionally looks at me expectantly when she has performed a very chilled out walk past. She can do it just fine now but I always reward her just the same to acknowledge that she did it so beautifully.

Oh and shout ahead to people where necessary "I'm practicing walking past people/ other dogs".

As @Devilshands says.

One thing we were told in training is that you brought the dog for your pleasure, not other people’s. Therefore, you’re not obliged to let other people pat him.

I do what you do, get my dog to sit down , and only when he’s sitting nicely do I invite the human over. As others have said, I usually explain that hes in training and ask them to wait until he’s sitting.

When my giant breed was young, I walked round with a tube of Primula in my pocket 😄. A VERY high value treat and helped enormously in our 'heel' lessons, too. As soon as the dog looks at the person they're about to jump on, you

1. Distract
2. Mark (ie a command, so SIT)
3. Treat Also helps if the other person can avoid eye contact and ignore, calmly, but that's difficult if it's a stranger. I also used a 'TRAINING' label on my puppy harness back then so we weren't shouted at. Finally, it took my adult DS nearly a year before he could enter a room or the house without engaging whatsoever with said mutt and make a fuss. Even eye contact excited mutt, so I begged DS to not even look in his direction. Once DS EVENTUALLY did this, he was amazed. "Mum, Ddog didn't jump up today". Bingo.