# Greeting Friends and Strangers - Training



## Sroodle8 (Dec 23, 2021)

I would practice first with people you know. Tell them to ignore Elroy unless he has all 4 paws on the ground or is sitting (tougher for a pup). As soon as he has 4 on the floor, he gets to be pet. As soon as he is jumping/pulling, the person turns away. If you are out for a walk, hopefully you will be asked whether it is ok to pet him and then you can give instructions. Or politely decline if Elroy seems a bit energetic.


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## For Want of Poodle (Feb 25, 2019)

I taught Annie not to jump by teaching her to jump on cue, then get off on cue. Jump (treat), off (treat). She started to naturally jump up and get immediately back down, hoping for a treat. When she figured those words out, I started to reduce how often she got treats for jumping, and give her multiple treats in a row for off, slowly increasing the spacing. Off is highly rewarded, jump is not. 

Then I used it! Before she jumped on a friend, I told her 'off' and then rewarded her for already having her feet on the floor. She knows what off means, and knows it's rewarded. And she knows when I want her to jump, and knows if I want her to jump, I will let her know! 

Oh! If you do this, don't be like me and have your physical 'jump' cue be similar to what someone who is nervous of dogs might do with their arms. Whoops. That took a bit of retraining to fix!


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## 94Magna_Tom (Feb 23, 2021)

For Want of Poodle said:


> I taught Annie not to jump by teaching her to jump on cue, then get off on cue. Jump (treat), off (treat). She started to naturally jump up and get immediately back down, hoping for a treat. When she figured those words out, I started to reduce how often she got treats for jumping, and give her multiple treats in a row for off, slowly increasing the spacing. Off is highly rewarded, jump is not.
> 
> Then I used it! Before she jumped on a friend, I told her 'off' and then rewarded her for already having her feet on the floor. She knows what off means, and knows it's rewarded. And she knows when I want her to jump, and knows if I want her to jump, I will let her know!
> 
> Oh! If you do this, don't be like me and have your physical 'jump' cue be similar to what someone who is nervous of dogs might do with their arms. Whoops. That took a bit of retraining to fix!


When you taught this "jump", was it jumping up on you? Or some other jump?


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## Skylar (Jul 29, 2016)

I have an off command too, but I prefer to teach a sit to be petted.

I learned in the AKC CGC and therapy dog course to teach a dog to sit for petting. Reinforce sitting by treating your dog for sitting while someone is petting them. The second your dog stands up or tries to jump, stop treating. You can even train a “go to” where the dog goes and sits or downs to greet someone.


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## For Want of Poodle (Feb 25, 2019)

Yup! Jump up on me. It's still one of her favourite tricks, I sometimes use it as a reward. I taught it with a treat lure.
At this point, she won't jump up without permission (unless she is really scared by something, and then she jumps on me and tries to climb into my arms). 



94Magna_Tom said:


> When you taught this "jump", was it jumping up on you? Or some other jump?


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## BennieJets (Oct 10, 2021)

I am so with you on all of this @94Magna_Tom . This is the one area I'm failing at. 
In our puppy kindergarten, they taught to use the leash to prevent the self-rewarding behaviour. We worked on sitting for treats (a continuous flow of them) as folks approached. Eventually we progressed to having people approach and pet so long as pup remained in a sit. Stepping on the leash to prevent jumping was also taught, which I don't see as being helpful in the long term as it isn't really teaching her self control, it's more or less preventing the practicing of the behaviour.

Here's the thing for us: Bennie excelled in class. She was easily one of the quickest studies of the class and it never took her long to get what I wanted from her. Including the jumping. At home, similarly, I call her to "Place" or her mat when partner or kids come home, and we wait while she settles before releasing her. 

BUT through the day, she'll randomly jump up and that is so hard to catch and prevent, you know? If I am out with her on leash, sure, I can sort of predict when the behaviour will strike. But it's those out of nowhere moments, when you're just walking by her and she wants some attention that is hard. She wears a "house line" still and doesn't get freedom to roam the house, and still I suck at catching her from jumping up. 

Now we are at jumping up to the counter and table too. So I definitely need to figure out how to train this. We use "off" which she knows(I think) but the act of jumping up is already so delicious to her, that"off" isn't so impactful.

I think I am going to move onto @For Want of Poodle 's method of training to jump up and then off on command. I'm hoping that flicks the switch.

Sorry for the long post, I was just so pumped to see someone else in this right now.


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## For Want of Poodle (Feb 25, 2019)

Controversial, but I taught no jumping on counters with a well timed aversive. My view on aversives is that 'god got you' should be what the dog believes - they have no clue what happened, it's the environment that got them, not the human. The other key was to do this before a major reward set in. 

When I noticed Annie had become interested in counters, i set Annie up with a nice piece of meat inside a tall, heavy casserole dish on the edge of the counter. I hung out at the table with a squirt bottle and watched her our of the corner of my eye. She put her nose up... I squirted her in the face. When she jumped and looked around, I ignored her and kept looking away. Over the next couple of weeks, I scruptiously kept the counter cleared, and then set her up another time or two. She had never met a spray bottle before, I hung out into different places each time, and she was never rewarded. I never reacted myself to her jumping up, I pretended I didn't know it was going on. She stopped looking at the counter. 

Fit the aversive to the dog - many dogs wouldn't care about a spray bottle! 

And then I made sure the counter was always clean everytime we left her unattended in the house, and still do to this day. One successful roast-heist is enough to make a very determined counter surfer. For a long time, I had a babygate on my kitchen. 

Now, she is 3 and HUNGRY all the time from prednisone. She barks at stuff left on the counter, I come, give her a treat, and then put the stuff away. I don't think I could teach her to ignore it, so I am settling for not stealing.


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

I agree with lots of the suggestions above. Teach a jump up command using yourself as the jump up person and then you have a situation where you can teach off. Rewarding off in preference to up will make it easier to prevent jumping up on others (Lily and Javelin are only allowed to "give hugs" to me). After you have it set with yourself as the target person have friends help you. Make sure you explain exactly what to do so they send the right message. Then you can work on generalizing to "strangers," meaning people you know but the dog doesn't necessarily remember.

For Want of Poodle I agree with you about counter exploration. It can be a super self rewarding/reinforcing behavior that can have deadly consequences. It is also incredibly hard to police throughout the day, but is essential to prevent if you want to allow the dog freedom in the house, or even just to give an expanded place to leave a young dog who is in the process of earning house freedom. With Lily we used all sorts of remore booby traps (the flappy mouse traps, collapsing noisy soda cans and aluminum baking pans, etc.). We tried water sprayed in her face. She found that funny and often tried to drink the water. She still looks on kitchen and vanity tops and checks out the top of my dresser even in our presence. Determined not to allow any of this for Javelin I opted the "god got you" approached starting right when I first noticed Javelin sticking his nose over the edge of the counter. I set him up for it by putting a little tempting piece of cheese while he was confined in another part of the house. I sat down at the island and had BF release him. He made a beeline to try to get the cheese and as soon as he did I threw a small plastic soda bottle with some pennies in it at his head and bounced it over the top of his head and it made a ton of noise at the same time. That sent him back out of the kitchen in a hurry and it has lasted over 6 years (needs a little refresher at this point). We do still have the bottle with the pennies and he can be dissuaded from a number of naughty habits simply by being asked "do you want the pennies?"


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## 94Magna_Tom (Feb 23, 2021)

I have a "give me kisses" command where he jumps up putting his feet on my chest (or on my arms if I choose) and then licks my lips. I know some of you don't like kisses, but I do😘😘😘! I will use this "give me kisses" as my "jump" command, and work on training an "off" command from there. I do want him to be allowed to jump on me, and my Dad, ON COMMAND, as we certainly enjoy it, as does Elroy!
Thanks for the tips.

Ohh! Another thing. Elroy doesn't counter surf. He tried ONCE when he was around 5 months and got the God sent penny jar treatment. Never tried again. But, I have noticed him starting to "look" again. Not going up, but he is expressing interest again. I will have to get back to keeping my counters cleaned!
Ha! Funny thing! Elroy is getting me to clean house! Who's training who? 🤣


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## lily cd re (Jul 23, 2012)

Tom if Elroy has learned to stop surfing through the penny jar you cn probably reinforce by just a little tapping of the penny jar on the counter. That sound carries power for Javelin.


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## 94Magna_Tom (Feb 23, 2021)

lily cd re said:


> Tom if Elroy has learned to stop surfing through the penny jar you cn probably reinforce by just a little tapping of the penny jar on the counter. That sound carries power for Javelin.


I'll take it out of the basement to have at the ready.


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## reraven123 (Jul 21, 2017)

If it's not one thing.....

I was just congratulating myself that Zephyr would never_ *think*_ of taking anything off of the counter when I hear crunch crunch crunch, look down and here is my cat who has gotten my glasses off of the kitchen counter and is chewing on them. Not the first time I have asked myself _*why*_ when I have a nice, well-behaved, non-shedding dog I had to go out and get myself a cat. Then he curls up next to me on the sofa and starts to purr and I remember--oh _*that's*_ why.


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## scooterscout99 (Dec 3, 2015)

I'm revisiting greeting after making a therapy dog visit to a local care facility with my 6 year old standard poodle. My dog did fine with the patient, who was sitting in a chair and had her hands in her lap with a good resupply of treats. Then we walked around to greet the staff of the facility, and he didn't know what to do. CGC was so long ago, and we rarely walk in the neighborhood anymore. I'm teaching him that 'go say hi' means it's okay to walk up to the person and sit in front of them for petting. Initially we're doing this as part of my small training group (we meet at the dog training club a couple times a week). I tell him 'sit' and the person delivers treats. Then I call him back to me and deliver better treats, so that he knows it always pays to return to me.

I'm teaching this to my 5-month old for the first time. She needs luring to sit in front of a stranger right now; hopefully she'll catch on quickly. My friends are savvy trainers; I think this would be difficult to teach out in public or with those unfamiliar with training dogs. Eventually I'll take it to a dog-friendly store for distraction.


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## WinnieThePoodle (Sep 1, 2020)

Winnie is a jumper so I know how it can be annoying especially when strangers encourage her. One thing I find helps is as she approaches someone I say in a deep firm tone 'no jumping' just before she reaches them and she keeps her paws down on the ground most of the time, assuming the other person doesn't do anything to encourage her to jump. Hopefully they will also take it as a cue to not try and get her jumping.


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