Why Jumping Up Is Such a Hard Habit to Shift
Dogs greet face to face; puppies jump at their mothers, and adult dogs jump at us to reach the part of us that talks and smiles. The behaviour survives because its success rate is superb. Even a visitor who pushes the dog down is delivering hands, voice and full attention at jump height, and a scolding is still a social event. Intermittent success makes it worse — the dog who is ignored by three guests and fussed by the fourth learns to jump at everyone, harder, just in case. Small dogs get a pass because the jump is cute, then grow into the same behaviour at full weight. Nothing about your dog is stubborn here: jumping is simply the best-paid greeting on offer, and your job is to change which greeting gets paid, for every visitor, every time.
Pay Four Paws on the Floor and Make Jumping Boring
Set the rule in mechanical terms your dog can learn: paws up, the person turns away, folds their arms and goes quiet and still; paws down, the person comes back to life with calm praise, a stroke on the chest rather than over the head, and a treat delivered low, at chest height, so the reward itself does not invite another launch. A sit can help if your dog knows it well, but grounded-and-calm is the real criterion — some dogs sit beautifully and still spring. Work on a lead or behind a gate at first so the visitor is protected while your dog experiments. Expect an extinction burst: a dog whose jumping suddenly stops working usually tries it bigger for a day or two before giving it up, and that spike is progress, not failure.
Brief Visitors So They Help Instead of Hype
Real guests undo more training than any other factor, so brief them before the door opens, in one sentence: ignore the dog completely until all four paws are down, then say hello calmly. Dog-loving visitors who crouch, squeal and pat are your hardest cases — give them a job instead, treats in hand, paid only for grounded behaviour. Children should greet with an adult between them and the dog, hands still, letting the dog approach. For excitable arrivals, keep the dog behind a gate for the first minutes and release them once coats are off and voices have dropped; the greeting that follows is a fraction of the doorway version. If a visitor cannot follow the script, management beats manners: the dog stays settled in another room with a chew, and nobody's training or shins suffer.
Proof the Greeting in Different Places and With Different People
A dog who keeps paws down for your neighbour may still launch at a delivery driver, a returning teenager, or someone met on a walk, because dogs learn greetings context by context. Practise staged arrivals with several helpers of different heights and energies, in the hall, at the garden gate, and on the pavement, keeping the same payment rule everywhere. Vary your dog's state too — a dog fresh from a walk greets better than one who has slept all afternoon — and set early real greetings up after exercise. Fade the treats gradually into praise and the occasional surprise reward, but keep paying grounded greetings longer than feels necessary; under-rewarding too soon is the usual relapse point. Rotate who runs the staged arrivals so the lesson is not tied to one trainer, and KinsLe Care Teams lets you assign practice greetings across the week.