Tips to Stop an Excitable Border Terrier From Jumping on People

For this Omaha dog training session, we worked with Oliver a 1 year-old Border Terrier who likes to jump up on people, gets over excited and has difficulty calming down enough to listen to his humans.

Having a Border Terrier myself, I was prepared for the energy Oliver displayed in the session. All Terriers are determined and I have found this mighty breed to be on the go more often than not.

We started out by going over the importance of exercise and suggesting that the family start an exercise journal for 3-4 weeks; chronicling each age of fetch, walk, scent games as well as any unwanted behavior incident. By keeping a record, the family should be able to see how much exercise their little guy needs to behave in other areas.

The family’s mother had some difficulty getting her sons to get on board with the dog’s need for clear rules and structure. This lack os rules was the chief reason that the dog “misbehaved” as it saw itself as a peer to the humans he lived with.

After suggesting a number of rules and showing the guardians how to enforce them without force, I went over ways to reward Oliver for desired actions and behaviors. The more the family pet with a purpose and use passive training, the better Oliver will behave.

Because Oliver was so excited when people came over and he lacked structure and discipline, he jumped up, nipped and got into trouble when the family had any guests over.

In the video below I show the guardians how to teach a dog to calm down and not jump up on people who come to visit.

Dogs who are over excited are more prone to making mistakes, just like humans. Stopping a dog from jumping on people is really easy with this technique, it just takes practice. I recommended the guardians have friends come over the visit so they can use this approach to teach the dog to calm down and better control himself.

To help the boys get on board with the new rules and structure, I explained a positive dog training strategy I developed a few years ago that gives the kids an incentive to be good guardians and the dog motivation to listen to them. Ive shared this tip with many of my clients as a dog behaviorist and it works really, really well.

To help the family remember all the dog behavior tips I shared with them in this at home dog training session, we shot a roadmap to success video that you can check out below.