Calming Boxers down

[logan1603]

Our boy is 2 years old but he still jumps up at people when they enter the room, we have tried everything we can think of to try and stop him, does anybody have any ideas as to what we can do to stop him or is surgery an option as I have heard that by having him neutered this will calm him.

 

[ELubas]

There are lots of reasons to neuter, but this is not one of them. From a health perspective he is certainly better off neutered, and he might calm a bit. Two year old boxer boys are "punks" and need guidance. Have you done any odedience classes with him? As for jumping, every time he gets to it is the most rewarding thing for him. Do you have a collar and lead on him when folks come in? Does he know sit and down? You need to teach him what you want him to do and then help him do it. So break it up into steps (practice all the time, not just for company). A sit, a down, a stay... Think of it as teaching him something to replace the behavior he does not. If he does jump tether him somewhere and ignore him. When he calms down go back and give him another go. Right now he has no idea that jumping is bad

 

[superruben]

We always put Ruben in a 'down, sit' whenever new people come in. I try to keep him there beside me for a while so he has a chance to let the "newness" of the person wear off. Then I let him out and usually he will run to them for some loving but he is calm enough that he never jumps or gets out of hand. He never was a jumper really but he would drive people crazy before trying to crawl into their lap whenever they sat down. The 'down, sit' has really helped us. Also whenever he just gets too rowdy I make him go into timeout, in a corner on his dog bed.

 

[Escher_fan]

Despite Mya doing well in her obedience classes, people coming over was a bit of a challenge.

What ended up working best was asking the people a head of time to completely ignore the dog for the first 10-15 minutes after they arrive. Once Mya become calm then they can greet her, but not until she's calm.

This way Mya's not being rewarded for being in the excited state. Gradually I've noticed that the excited time has been slowly reduced. For people that come over frequently, she pretty much goes to her bed and lies down so she can see the sooner!

Good luck!

 

[lucasmum]

We had the same problem with Luca and we used training discs which worked really well and almost immediately. Try googling mikki training discs. Good luck.

 

[rfdfirewife]

My two still arent great by any means. but the best advice I got was do the following:
May need 2 people for this. Get your dog, and a ziplock bag of treats and go to the nearest pet co, petsmart during busy hours. Go up to every person in that store and tell them that you are trying to teach your dog to greet properly. Tell them to say hi " (name)" and if they sit, or 4 paws on floor they can give your dog a treat. All I have to say is that by the end of the 15min visit everytime addie came up to anyone new she would lay down! I wouldnt even have to ask (she started the laydown on her own, I had asked her to sit) the theory is that in the pet store most people are pet friendly and will understand.....now if you carry it over into the house it works just as well. Now I let her training go so we are back to square one on guests.