Does your dog jump on everyone he sees? Would you like to fix that?
Start with Your Family Members
Your dog’s greeting behavior starts with the way you allow him to greet you. Many dogs get overly excited when their own family comes home. Since most dogs find guests even more exciting than their family members, the stage is set for out-of-control greetings when visitors arrive!
The best place to start is by teaching your dog the greeting behavior you want with your own family members.
Make sure everyone in your household greets your dog in a calm, low-key way. If your dog learns to anticipate a burst of excitement every time you come through the door, he may work himself into a frenzy before you even have a chance to interact with him.
Instead, completely ignore your dog when he is overly excited. Once he finally settles down, calmly call him over and give him some affection. He’ll quickly learn that approaching you calmly is the fastest way to get the interaction he wants.
And that’s a great first step toward developing a “four on the floor” greeting for both your family and your guests.
Use Treats to Speed Up the Process
Treats can also help your dog learn a new greeting behavior more quickly. We recommend several exercises that use treats to teach dogs to greet people calmly. One of our favorites is the Strategic Treat Scatter.
Here’s how to do it:
- Enter your house with a handful of treats ready to go.
- Immediately scatter about half of the treats on the floor, before your dog has a chance to jump.
- Keep walking and calmly ignore your dog.
- Once he has finished the first scatter and catches up to you, do another treat scatter.
Practice this every time a family member comes through the door. With repetition, you’ll create a new expectation for your dog. The sound of the door opening will become a predictor that something good is about to happen, such as treats being scattered on the floor.
Foraging for treats is a naturally calming activity for dogs. Over time, this exercise can actually change the way your dog feels about someone entering the home. In behavioral terms, you’re changing his Conditioned Emotional Response (CER) to the arrival of people.
Once your dog is consistently greeting people calmly, you can gradually reduce the number of treat scatters. Eventually, an occasional treat can be enough to help maintain that polite greeting behavior long term.
Want help with this?
If your dog is still struggling with greetings, or you’d like some hands-on help, sign up for our upcoming Great Greetings – The Jumping Workshop or schedule a private lesson. We’ll show you exactly how to turn your enthusiastic greeter into a polite one!