Why “Off” Is Not Working
One of the most common problem dog behaviors I get asked to help with is jumping – jumping on people, jumping on furniture, counter-surfing, etc. At best it’s frustrating to have a dog that jumps on everyone or everything. At worst, it’s dangerous and your dog could get hurt or hurt someone.
Dogs jump for a number of reasons, but at the core they’re trying to meet a need. That need could be attention, to get yummy smelling food, or even to create space from a something that makes them uncomfortable.
What most people do in this situation seems very natural. They say “off” or “down” while their dog is jumping. We know what those words mean so we say them to our dogs to communicate how we need them to change their behavior. Unfortunately, this is likely making the problem worse, not better.
Learning influences behavior
It is important to remember that dogs don’t speak human and they don’t understand our words until we give them clear meaning. Instead, they learn through association and consequences of their behavior. So when you say “off” or “down” to your dog when they’re jumping, you know what you mean, but it’s gibberish to your dog. You might as well say “banana” because it will have the same impact.
Dogs learn to understand our words through association. Your dog knows “sit” because after enough times of you saying that specific word at the same time they put their butt on the ground, they learned that “sit” means “put my butt on the ground.” But they learned that because you said the word as the action was happening. When do most people say “off”? While their dog is jumping. So it’s likely that when you are saying that word, you’re actually teaching your dog that “off” means “jump on that person!”
Additionally, when we only tell our dogs what not to do, they don’t learn the right behaviors or what we want them to do. Much of how people interact with their dogs is like a game of “hot and cold” but without the hot. They only correct their dog when they are wrong, but don’t help them understand what’s right. This is not only extremely frustrating for the dog, but also opens to the door to other undesirable behaviors because it leaves it up to the dog to figure out what it’s supposed to do. We end up with a number of potential outcomes (this is a short list of possibilities! The real list is limited only by your dog’s imagination):
I’m allowed to jump until someone says “off”
“Off” means I can jump two times but not after that
“Off” means don’t jump when mom is around, but it’s ok when she isn’t there
If I can’t jump, but I need something, maybe I will bark instead and that will get their attention
Since I can’t jump, maybe I will chew on this person’s pants instead
I approach communicating with dogs through the lens of Kathy Sdao. She flips the “hot and cold” game on its head and instead of only focusing on “cold”, focuses solely on “hot” through her SMART x 50 protocol. Basically, you actively seek to capture “good” behaviors your dog does throughout the day and reward them. Even when you don’t ask them to do those behaviors. For example, your dog is lying quietly on their bed - reward that! Your dog went to their crate on their own - reward that! Your dog waited outside the kitchen while you made their breakfast - reward that! Your dog didn’t jump on someone the second they saw them - REWARD THAT! By telling our dogs what we think is awesome, they will naturally offer those behaviors more frequently.
What you practice, you perform
As a “positive reinforcement” dog trainer, this essentially means I provide rewards to increase the probability of desirable dog behaviors. But I don’t decide what is reinforcing – the learner (dog) does. For example, I might think freeze-dried minnows are a super high value treat for a dog. But a dog might prefer bland kibble. If the reward of kibble makes the dog more likely to perform a behavior to earn that reward, the kibble is reinforcing, not the minnow. Similarly, if a dog is jumping on people to get attention, and they get corrected with “off”, that just might get the dog enough of the attention they are seeking to make it reinforcing. Instead of making the jumping behavior less likely to occur, we are actually reinforcing it, making it more likely to occur.
So if correcting your dog doesn’t work, how do you stop their jumping? As in all things dog training, we focus on practicing desirable behaviors and ignoring undesirable behaviors. In other words, we show your dog what to do instead of jumping (through training), and we give them every opportunity to practice that alternative behavior. We also remove the opportunities to jump in the first place (through management) by using distance, leashes, baby gates, and other things to prevent the jumping. Over time, the jumping behavior is naturally extinguished. Your dog is no longer rehearsing jumping and it’s also not getting reinforced – to your dog, there’s simply no benefit to jumping anymore and that behavior no longer serves a function for them.
My favorite alternative behavior to jumping is “4-on-the-floor”. This is when we show the dog that keeping their feet on the ground is what pays and gets them both food and attention. There is an art to teaching this, because you have to make it both more reinforcing than jumping on people (which let’s face it, is pretty awesome to many dogs), and you have to catch the dog before they jump. But since you can’t jump on people if your feet are on the ground, this is an excellent alternative behavior that is incompatible with jumping for dogs. It also gives our dogs clear information about what behavior we want them to do instead of jumping, and heavily rewards them when they get it right.
Practice makes almost perfect
When training any behavior, be patient with your dog and help them learn. It’s important to keep in mind that they come with their own learning history. For example, if they have been jumping on people for 5 months already that’s a lot of reinforcement and practice to undo. It’s not at all impossible but it will take practice and consistency of the new behavior. Just like with people, it takes dogs time and successful repetitions to learn a new behavior or skill. And your dog likely won’t be successful 100% of the time, especially if they are in the throes of adolescence!
The more you support your dog and show them what you do want, the more likely they are to do those behaviors. Dogs like learning and getting things right. They like working with us and figuring out what we’re trying to communicate to them. They aren’t stubborn, or ignoring you, they just don’t understand what you want because you haven’t shown them yet. Living in the human world is incredibly challenging for dogs, and yet they have figured us out on their own pretty well. We certainly don’t make it easy for them most of the time!
This idea of communicating to your dog what you do want instead of what you don’t want extends far beyond jumping on people and things. Whether it’s barking, chewing on your favorite shoes, pulling on the leash, digging, or anything else, your dog is just doing what feels good for them and fulfills their needs. If their behavior doesn’t work for you, figure out what does, show your dog, and then practice the heck out of that. And, give both yourself and your dog some grace as you learn together. Learning is challenging, no one is perfect, and everyone (including your dog) is doing the best they can with the information they have available to them.
Happy training!
