When Pigs Fly_ Training Success With Impossible Dogs - Jane Killion [68]
5. Barking
6. Chewing
7. Charging doors
8. Housetraining issues
9. Aggression
I Would Shake Your Hand if I Had Opposable Thumbs
Jumping on People
Here is the classic ABC of dogs jumping on people:
A. Person approaches.
B. Dog jumps on them.
C. Person pushes, yells at, “knees,” or strikes dog.
If you are reading this section, I am 90% certain that you have tried getting your dog not to jump on you in this way and it has not worked. Although you are certain that the treatment you have been giving your dog in exchange for jumping on you should be punishing enough to stop the behavior, it doesn’t do so reliably. You have either have had limited success, or found that, although you might keep your dog from jumping on you, he will still jump on strangers, especially small and weak strangers. Let’s examine the reasons for this.
Think about puppies greeting an adult dog. What do they do? They jump up and lick the face of the adult, saying, “I am small, will not hurt you, and I want to be loved and not harmed by you.” A normal adult dog will not harm a puppy or dog that offers that behavior. So, the “jumping in greeting” ABC that your dog comes pre-equipped with is this:
A. Adult dog approaches.
B. Puppy jumps up and licks face and mouth of adult dog.
C. Adult dog offers some pleasant greeting behavior in exchange—regurgitates food, plays with puppies or engages puppies in another non-aggressive interaction.
Can you see how confusing it is for your dog when you do bad stuff to him for jumping on you? Your dog sees a new person. Your dog offers the absolutely correct and appropriate submissive behavior of jumping up and pawing at the stranger. The dog is doing what he is hard-wired to do. In evolutionary terms, it was the correct behavior to offer under the circumstances. We humans, however, being retarded when it comes to dog language, fail to be appeased by this behavior and yell at/strike/jerk on the collar of or give a knee to the dog. Now the dog thinks, “Holy smokes, I must not have given a strong enough submissive signal! Better try it again, only this time I am going to get really frantically submissive so there can be no mistake!” The dog jumps faster and harder at you in an attempt to display his submissiveness. Lo and behold, a vicious circle of futile violence and misunderstanding is born.
Yeah, you may be able to punish the dog enough that he is actually afraid of people and will not come near. As we noted previously, however, Pigs Fly dogs often seem to be unimpressed by usual levels of physical punishment, and you may have to dig deep and get quite rough to suppress the jumping behavior. Furthermore, you will not have taught him an “acceptable to humans” behavior that he can do in response to the antecedent of an approaching person. You only taught him that an approaching human is a cue for something very unpleasant so he had better stay away. Approaching stranger equals something very unpleasant—need I add that the seeds of aggression towards people might be planted in this way?
It gets worse. Because your dog has not learned what to do when meeting people, he will still jump on people if he thinks he can do so without being subject to “the treatment.” This is why, even though you thought you had punished this behavior out of your dog, the “jumping on people” behavior will reappear spontaneously with new people, especially small or weak people who might not be able to deliver sufficiently strong physical aversives to stop the dog from doing it.
OK, now it’s time for you to put on your thinking cap and come up with a creative solution. The antecedent is a person approaching your dog. Instead of the behavior of jumping on them, what would you like your dog to do? “Not jump on them” is not a behavior—you have to pick something specific that your dog can do, not what you do not want him to do. How about this?
A. Person approaches.
B. Dog sits automatically.
C. Person greets and pats/pays attention to the dog.
Wouldn’t that be pleasant? Here is a plan for teaching it:
1. Have