No matter how much you love your Beagle, being jumped on constantly is no fun. Even if you don’t mind, friends, family and strangers who meet your dog may. Getting a dog to stop jumping on people can seem challenging, but for kids and the elderly, jumping dogs can result in injury – so it’s best to teach your Beagle manners. The following is how to teach your Beagle to stop jumping on people.
Why Your Beagle Jumps On People
Dogs are opportunistic creatures. This means if they can do something to get what they want, they will. Jumping up usually starts when your Beagle is a puppy and he puts his cute little paws on you to get your attention. Understandably, you couldn’t resist, but your puppy just learned that putting his two front paws on you gets him what he wants and he will do it more in the future. So unless your Beagle is jumping on people out of fear or aggression (in which case you should seek a professional dog trainer for help), he is doing it because it gets him what he wants – attention, a toy, food, etc. The good news is that this makes it easy to stop the behavior. All you have to do is make sure your Beagle is not being rewarded for it. Then, give him another behavior to do instead that is rewarded. Problem solved.
3 Steps To Getting Your Beagle To Not Jump On People
#1 – Stop Rewarding The Jumping
Every time your Beagle jumps on someone that person needs to ignore her completely. The best thing to do is turn around and walk away. Even if they shout “down,” “no,” and/or push her away – negative attention is still attention. The trick is that every single person, 100 percent of the time, needs to do this. One person saying “oh I don’t mind” and then giving your Beagle what she wants will make the behavior stronger. So insist upon your rules.
#2 – Ask For A Conflicting Behavior
Most people ask for a sit. Your Beagle can’t sit and jump up at the same time. There are two ways to do this: wait for your dog to offer a sit, or give the cue Sit and then reward her when she responds. The reward should be whatever your Beagle was jumping on you for in the first place – petting, a toy, a treat, even his food dish! Anything your Beagle normally jumps up on you for, she now only gets if she is sitting. If your Beagle is very young or really overzealous, you may need to start by rewarding a calm “four on the floor” first, then work towards a sit as your Beagle learns self-control. You will wait until she is standing quietly and then reward. This takes some training and patience, but it will work because, as mentioned above, dogs repeat behaviors that get them what they want.
#3 – Management
This is the last piece of the puzzle, and it’s what you have to do while your Beagle is learning to sit for things, which won’t happen overnight. You can help your Beagle by holding them lightly when greeting new people, as long as they are comfortable with that and the attention they are receiving. Having your Beagle drag a leash from his harness can also help with jumping for a couple of reasons. It’s useful when you meet that pesky person who lets (or worse, encourages!) your Beagle to jump on them, or maybe you are in a situation that is just too exciting for him at this point in his training to remember his manners – you can just step on the leash so he can’t physically practice the behavior. Or you can lead him away from the person altogether, let him calm down, and then bring him back to try the greeting when he is more settled.
