Most dogs love to meet new people. In their eagerness to be presented for pets, love, and play time, they often jump all over new people to shower them in greetings. Most dogs jump on people because they’ve been unintentionally trained to do so. They learned that when they jump on people, they get attention, and that’s what they want!

If your dog jumps on people by way of greeting, it can be annoying and somewhat embarrassing. Here’s how to fix it.

Adopt a “Four-on-the-Floor” rule

Some well meaning strangers and family members will encourage the dog to jump up by patting their stomachs or showering the pet in attention. Talk with people who don’t discourage the jumping, and explain that you are trying to teach the dog not to jump. Conflicting responses from different people may confuse the dog and make it harder to train the concept.

When strangers are present, it may be helpful to put the dog on leash, even in the home, so that he can’t jump all over them. Prevent him from greeting as long as he is wild and excited, but let him come forward if he is keeping his paws on the ground.

Ignore the behavior

Even yelling or negative reinforcement is still attention. If your pet is seeking attention, he’s still getting rewarded through the discouragement itself. Instead, ignore the behavior. Do not pet, or even look at the dog. Stand still and look straight ahead, over the dog’s face, until he calms down and isn’t jumping anymore.

You can then pet the dog, but if he starts jumping in excitement again, go back to the ignoring behavior. It may take a while for your pet to catch on that jumping is no longer rewarding, but he’ll eventually notice that jumping doesn’t get what he wants anymore.

If you have dog savvy people in your network, invite them over to do greeting behavior, and ask them to do the same thing. This will help your pet realize that it’s not just you that won’t respond to jumping.

Reward the floor

One simple, positive way to get dogs to stay on the ground is to make the floor appealing. Dropping treats on the floor can help encourage him to stop jumping as he learns that attention can come from different areas.

You can also teach and reinforce a sit command, so your dog has an appropriate behavior to offer when greeting a new person. Teaching sit as a potential greeting can also help make it less likely for them to jump up, because even if they break one behavior (sit) in their excitement, they’ll be less likely to break all of their conditioning. (Sit and not jumping.)

Dog jumping is annoying behavior, but it can be resolved with patient and consistent training. Even if your dog finds it hard to resist jumping, he’ll soon discover that the attention he gets from offering a sit is much warmer than what he gets from jumping around.