Guidance from Tricia Wills, Dog Trainer in Exeter, Devon and the South West
A happy dog is what we want most, but excitability in a dog can become an excessive anti-social and embarrassing habit. Dogs love to socialise but jumping up as a greeting, can cause people to be frightened, can sometimes injure and get them pretty muddy. In the house it maybe charging at the door when visitors arrive or jumping up when they are in the house, in the car it could be excessive jumping around and barking at passers by.
Day to day interaction with this behaviour can become embarrassing and effect your social interaction with family and friends and limit your leisure time walking with your dog to quieter times outdoors.
There are various situations where and when this behaviour arises and we must be conscious of our own actions on the lead up to this type of dog behaviour. Sometimes we cannot ‘see the wood for the trees’ and it is important to untangle the sequence of events that lead to dog excitability.
A happy dog is a good thing, an overly exhilarated dog can be absolutely overwhelming, it could be an outdoor greet on a walk where there is a danger of knocking over children or elderly people, or chasing and harassing other dogs. In the home greeting people where the dog excessively jumps up to them or onto the furniture.
Patterns and rules for this excitable dog behaviour and what is socially respectable to others must be recognised by owner and the dog! This behaviour in puppies will diminish as they get older with good training, but beware not to encourage this excitability through over-exuberant emotional encouragement to please your dog at all costs – it may knock you over backwards – literally!
My 25 years+ of day-to-day owner-to-dog relationships have exposed many fascinating interactions and behavioural patterns and symptoms that to my trained eye have helped me to recognise the triggers to create successful dog training solutions.
