How Can We Have A Party When Dillard Sobs Pitifully In His Crate?

[JJNg]

Lots of good suggestions above on how to train a dog not to jump. However, you probably don't have enough time to use this for your New Year's party. For the upcoming event, it would be best to just prevent problems. And if boarding isn't an option, I like the idea of hiring a kid to hang out with him.

I've personally found stepping back to prevent contact, then turning your back on the dog to ignore him to be the most effective method. If he jumps on your back, walk away and continue to ignore. Or just stand still, keeping your back to him, if you can put up with the jumping. As soon as the dog has all 4 feet back on the floor, you can turn back to him and give him attention. If you can get the timing down so that the dog is always ignored when he jumps and rewarded when he has '4 or the floor', most dogs learn pretty quickly.

I also find that letting the dog figure it out for himself works better than physically pulling him off people, or having people push him off. I think they learn more effectively when they figure it out themselves. And being pushed off or told 'no' is still a form of attention and can be unintentionally rewarding.

I would caution against raising your knee when the dog jumps. If you're in the process of raising your knee as the dog is jumping forward, the impact can be enough to injure the dog even if you don't mean to.

One of my friends used to have 'training parties' to work on greeting behavior like problems with jumping. Invite some of your dog friends over so that you have a small group to simulate a real party. Then make sure everyone is instructed to use the techniques above so that the dog gets a consistent response - ignored if jumping, attention when '4 or on the floor'.

Often, the hardest part of teaching a dog not to jump are your friends who say they don't mind and allow the dog to jump on them. Every time he's allowed to jump on someone and is given attention for it, he will think it's ok. So you need to do your best to make sure that doesn't happen.

[Guest iconsmum]

if you're worried about this one evening being a

problem and haven't got time to train

anything, take him out for a long walk in the late afternoon of new years eve day )try a

good stiff hour's tramp at a brisk speed - which is good for everybody...then if your guests are arriving at say 8, take him for a ten minute leash walk at 7 45 and be outside with him as your guests arrive so that they can all meet each other casually without a lot of attention coming his way.

this takes the adrenalin out of the "people in my house" scenario.

[Guest iconsmum]

if you're worried about this one evening being a

problem and haven't got time to train

anything, take him out for a long walk in the late afternoon of new years eve day - do a

good stiff hour's tramp at a brisk speed - which is good for everybody...then if your guests are arriving at say 8, take him for a fifteen minute leash walk at 7 45 and be outside with him BEFORE AND AS (vip) your guests arrive so that they can all meet each other casually without a lot of attention coming his way.

this takes the adrenalin out of the "people in my house" scenario. Walk in with the guests and the dog and indicate to the guests that they ignore

him for the first half hour; and then DO that; which is hard - but If you keep people on their feet for ten minutes and talk about other things, it's harder for the dog to be demanding, he's already said hello outside and he's about to lose interest. and

happy

new

year!