Q&A with ‘The Paw Man’ (623) – Jumping Into Aversives Margie Roe Bowling Hoping I am posting correctly as I do not have a status line as I do on most FB Pages-- My question is I have adopted a 7 year old Wirmeramer that jumps constantly on people and is a fright to handle because she is so strong. Paw Man Adopting a dog of that age usually means that you are getting a dog with a lot of behavioral baggage. It also makes me wonder why the previous owners would get rid of a dog after having it for 7 years? Margie She really is a gentle soul, but this jumping will knock someone down and injure them if they are not strong enough to be on guard. Paw Man Being a ‘gentle soul’ will mean nothing to any person that she knocks down or scratches with her claws. But you describing her as a ‘gentle soul’ tells me a bit about how you see her. You may feel that because that you have ‘rescued’ her that she needs to be handled with kid-gloves. This is a common misconception about all but the most extreme of abused dog cases. Margie We correct her by of course raising our voice, pulling her off the person and… Paw Man Raising your voice and pulling her off the person will only serve to further excite the dog and will have no inhibitory effect at all. Margie …other than getting a shock collar, which we have not, we do not know how to handle this behavior. Our other dogs do not do this and we cannot fathom why she continues with this behavior. Thank you so much. Paw Man Whilst a Remote Training Collar could certainly be used to extinguish this behavior almost immediately, it would be an extreme case of overkill when the application of a simple aversive would do the trick almost just as quickly. With dogs that constantly jump up on everyone the simplest aversive to use is to bring your knee up into the dog’s chest as it jumps up. This should be done hard enough to elicit a small yip or yelp from the dog. The moment this is done once the dog should be setup to do the behavior again and again. Enticing the dog to jump up is not only allowed but recommended.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 13:00:47 +0000