It is always a little embarrassing when friends or family stop to see you, wearing their best going-to-visit clothes, and your pittie with muddy feet jumps on them in excitement. You wish, red-faced, that you could stop your pit bull from jumping as you are apologizing all over the place. The good news is you can with just a few pit bull training tips. The key is to learn how to get your dog to keep his feet on the ground. In order to do this you will need to give him a good reason to do so.
Why Pit Bulls Jump
One of the reasons puppies jump on people is because they want to get to their faces to greet them. This may seem cute and even humorous when the dog is a pup, but allowed to continue into adulthood it can and will become a problem. The reason an adult dog jumps is to assert dominance in the pack which means dominance over you! To combat this you need to assert yourself as alpha leader in your home through pit bull obedience training.
Jumping is typically not a sign of aggression, or bad character, but it can be very inconvenient and annoying to say the least. At its worst, jumping can be dangerous—knocking small children or frail individuals down, knocking items out of hands, scratching or even lacerating skin… To stop your pit bull from jumping, your dog simply needs to learn that a more desirable behavior is to keep all four on the floor.
Stopping Excited Pit Bull Jumping
If your dog’s jumping is due to excitement, one effective measure to take is to ignore him by not looking at or touching him until all four feet are back on the ground. When his feet are planted, immediately praise him and pet him. If he jumps on you again, repeat the procedure. After a while he’ll grasp the idea that he will only receive the reward of your affection when he is not jumping on you.
Another technique is to ignore your pit bull altogether for 10 or 15 minutes when you get home from an outing. This short period of time is enough to allow your dog to calm down. When he’s calm you can praise and pet him. If you show affection to your dog when he is out of his mind with excitement to see you, he will associate the reward with the excited behavior, thus reinforcing his desire to jump.
Yet another way to stop your pit bull from jumping is by stepping into his space. Only the alpha dog, or pack leader is allowed to take over another dog’s space, and by taking a quick sidestep into the space that would otherwise have been occupied by your dog, you are accomplishing two things:
1. Asserting pack leadership, and…
2. Putting your dog off-balance, creating an uncomfortable situation for him.
This technique is not to be done aggressively. The idea is not to scare or harm your dog, but to make him realize that jumping on you is not a respectful or fun thing to do. After all, no dog would disrespect the pack leader.
To stop your pit bull from jumping with this technique you always want to step into your dog’s space, and never away from it. If you step away, you are giving up space, allowing him to regain balance instead of taking it away. Do this calmly and casually, always taking and retaining your space.
A dog that jumps all the time is a real annoyance. A pit bull that jumps can be even scarier because of the undeserved reputation that the breed has endured due to historical human blunders. One of the ways we can restore the pit bulls one time status of family favorite is to learn how to stop pit bulls from jumping.