Training Tip for German Shepherd Dogs and Puppies: Stop Jumping

by Dean | Adult Dogs, Puppies, puppy, training

Exploring the vast prairie of the Washita National Wildlife Refuge

How to Stop Your German Shepherd Dog, Adult and Puppy to Stop Jumping on You

German Shepherd Dog, adults and puppies are social and pack animals.  Because German Shepherd Dogs are true herding dogs, the pack instinct is very strong.  The reason the German Shepherd Dog  jumps on you when greeting you is because they are trying to get to your face to greet you with a kiss.  This is how the pack leader is always greeted in the wild.  Even if you leave the house or yard for a few minutes, your German Shepherd Dog will have a strong instinctual desire to greet you again with a kiss and, therefore, jump up to your face level.

Now that you know the reason behind this sometimes annoying behavior, you can effectively  develop a strategy to stop it.  First the best way to stop this behavior is to never allow it develop.  Many times, a new German Shepherd Dog puppy owner will allow the small puppy to greet them with a exuberant jump.  The German Shepherd Dog puppy will bounce around with great exuberance and we allow it because they are small.  Therefore, because the puppy is so small it doesn’t bother us or soil our clothes.  Even more so, we encourage this jumping behavior through positive reinforcement by loving on the puppy and responding to the German Shepherd Dog puppy with a high pitch voice that increases his excitement. This behavior is only natural and proves you are a German Shepherd Dog fan and that you love your puppy.

However, do not allow your German Shepherd Dog puppy to jump on you.  In addition, do not allow anybody to let the German Shepherd Dog puppy to jump on them.  When greeting your new puppy go down to his level so that he can greet you with a kiss without jumping on you. Every time that your new German Shepherd Dog puppy does jump on you, push the puppy away and give him a sharp verbal correction such as “OFF”!   Be careful of which command you use because as training proceeds certain commands may become confusing. For example, if you were to use the command “Down” rather than OFF, when you start obedience training “DOWN” has a completely different meaning.

While this training and correction exercise will have to be repeated several times over many days, eventually the German Shepherd Dog puppy will learn not to jump on people.

puppy jumping on mom to give her a kiss

Tomorrow, I will post on how to stop and adult or adolescent German Shepherd Dog to stop jumping on you or others. This behavior is much harder to correct because usually it has been engrained deeply into the psyche of the German Shepherd Dog from training errors as a puppy.

Ask me a question and I will provide my opinion.

Sincerely,

KeystoneGermanShepherds