Why Do Dogs Jump on You? 3 Reasons & How to Stop It
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View 1 More +Anyone who’s spent much time around dogs has had the experience of dogs jumping up on them. When it’s your dog jumping up on you or others, the experience can be frustrating, to say the least. Dog claws are sharp and can easily cause injury. They can also spread mud and dirt all over your clothing. While small dogs jumping up can be frustrating, large dogs can be scary and intimidating, especially if you don’t personally know the pooch.
But why do dogs jump on you? How do you stop your dog from jumping on people? In this article, we attempt to answer both of these questions, no matter if you have a Chihuahua or a Great Dane!
The 3 Reasons Why Dogs Jump on People
1. Greeting
Most of the time, dogs will jump up on you simply as their way of greeting you. This is especially true if you’ve been away for the day (or 5 minutes!) and your pooch is super excited to see you. Puppies will often jump up to their mothers in greeting and for safety. Since you are now part of your dog’s social group, they may be repeating a learned greeting behavior that has been reinforced over time.
2. Social Behavior, Arousal, and Learned Behavior
There are various ways in which dogs communicate. This is especially true when a dog meets new faces and may feel excited, conflicted, or overstimulated. Jumping up is commonly a result of increased arousal or a learned behavior. This is usually harmless, but can definitely be unsettling for the person being jumped on!
Sometimes, the jumping may be accompanied by growling or even humping, which in many cases is related to arousal, stress, play behavior, or learned habits
If your dog is showing signs of stress, anxiety, or difficulty settling, we suggest booking a call with one of our vets to get further advice on how to support your dog.
3. Attention Seeking
Another potential reason for dogs jumping up on people is simply boredom and attention-seeking behavior. The dog may have pent-up energy and is thus easily excitable and jumps up to get attention. They may be bored from not being exercised or interacted with enough, and are simply telling you that it’s time for a walk or play session.
How to Stop a Dog From Jumping
To stop your dog from jumping on people, you’ll need to engage in a specific training program. Ideally, this type of training should begin from puppyhood, but jumping can also be modified at any age with enough patience and consistency. There are several different training methods to help stop your pooch from jumping, but you’ll first need to establish why your pooch is jumping before trying to solve it. The solution may simply be giving them enough exercise and stimulation, but if that is already happening, you can try other methods.
The first essential step is to stop encouraging the behavior. You may not even realize it, but if your dog greets you by jumping up onto you and you greet them back, you are inadvertently encouraging and reinforcing the behavior. To stop this behavior, avoid physical pushing or punishment and instead remove attention (no eye contact, talking, or touching) until your dog has all four paws on the ground.
If your dog is jumping on visitors, it can be more challenging to stop the behavior. The best way to train your dog to stop jumping is to put them on a leash when visitors arrive and make them sit and stay calm before greeting new faces.
Positive reinforcement training is a helpful method in stopping your dog from jumping. If your dog doesn’t jump or listen to you when you make the command for them to get down, give them praise or a treat to reinforce the behavior. It will help greatly to ensure that your family also follows the rules and ignores your dog’s jumping, and also to inform any visitors of your training intentions.
Conclusion
Most of the time, dogs jump on people simply because they are excited and want to greet them. Learning how to stop your dog from jumping on you when excited is crucial to having a well-trained pet. The behavior is most commonly related to learned greeting patterns and attention-seeking rather than dominance, but in any case, it’s generally a manageable behavior to modify with consistent, appropriate training. With consistent training, you can gradually train your dog to stop the behavior — just make sure your family and friends are on board too!
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Featured Image Credit: Bachkova Natalia, Shutterstock
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Ollie is a zoologist turned freelance animal writer living in South Australia with his partner Alex and their mini zoo consisting of their eldest, a rescue dog named Pepper, many aquatic creatures, and their cat Steve. Ollie has a Master's degree in wildlife biology but became a freelance animal writer in 2020 and hasn't looked back. He loves sharing what he has learned with pet parents around the planet.
