Jumping Dog Solution Case Study

Martha had always wanted a small dog to keep her company. So when she got her first apartment, she made sure the community was dog-friendly. She found a nice family that was giving away some mixed breed puppies, and brought home a little girl that was bouncy and full of energy, just like Martha.

When Martha first got Bubbles, she enjoyed watching her bounce up and down, and loved the jumping up when Bubbles greeted Martha at the door. Yet one day Martha brought over her four-year old niece and noticed that Bubbles would not stop jumping on her, causing her to fall over and hurt herself. Martha then thought of all the snagged sweaters and times that the jumping got out of hand. She decided then and there that the jumping behavior had to stop.

Martha began her quest to stop Bubbles from jumping by looking for expert advice. She scoured bookstores and spoke with trainers to find the right method for training Bubbles to stop jumping. She found that consistency was important and so was patience. So she set her mind to giving Bubbles a lot of love, but also decided that she would have to be committed to keeping up the training in the long term, too.

Martha began to discourage Bubbles' jumping behavior by issuing the command, "Down!" every time she walked in the door. She decided on the word "down" because it was an easy word for everyone to use. Every time she walked in the door, she would firmly say "Down!" until Bubbles was no longer jumping. It was frustrating for Martha at first, because Bubbles just was not getting it. Martha even tried giving Bubbles a little nudge to get her to back off while she firmly said, "Down." Yet after a week, Martha began to see that it was taking fewer and fewer commands to get Bubbles to stop jumping.

One of the things Martha also learned from her books and discussions with trainers was that she needed to praise Bubbles when she did stop jumping. This was fairly easy, because Martha was so overjoyed when Bubbles stopped the jumping behavior she couldn't wait to praise her dog. Meanwhile, Bubbles just ate up the positive attention.

After a few weeks, it was taking no more than two "Down" commands for Bubbles to stop jumping. Once Bubbles learned that she would gain praise for not jumping at all, the behavior started to cease completely. After a few months, Martha felt comfortable again bringing her niece over to her house to play with Bubbles, and found that the two of them now got along beautifully.

From Martha's situation, we can see that it will take time, patience, and consistency to train a dog to stop jumping. However, not all dog's can be trained simply at home. Martha was prepared to use a trainer for assistance in curbing Bubbles behavior, but found that her patience paid off in the end. The key was using a consistent command and praising Bubbles greatly when she behaved.