Jack Russel Terrier going mental when unfamiliar people are in the house.

Laisurg

Hi all, My Jack Russel who is around 7 or 8 now and whenever we have anyone over he gets extremely excited and jumps all over them non stop and barks non stop when he's put in another room.

This is a recent problem that came up over the last year and it makes it very difficult to have people over sometimes, does anyone have any idea what i can do about this?

Thanks in advance

Whispered

My dogs do the same, so when I have someone coming for a visit i freeze kongs in advance so they'll be occupied.

When the person first arrives, I'll clip the dog on the lead and bring let them greet the guest. If they start acting the maggot I just put them in another room, alone for 1 min, then bring him back out, if he starts again, immediately into the other room. They eventually calm down.

Then they get their kongs and lie down with them while I have a chat with my guest.

If putting your dog into another room isn't possible, then equip your guest with some treats and have them ask the dog to sit, lie down etc. They can interact with the dog then in a controlled way. If you don't want to force treats onto a guest, you can do it yourself, but you're just not as exciting as the new person (;)) so it may not work as well.

piperh

Mine did this too (but they are still pups:rolleyes:) what i did was get the kids and there mates to go outside and ring the doorbell and before i answered the door i sent the dogs to their beds in the living room and when they were calm i opened the door and the kids came in. They could see the kids but i used the stay command whilst giving treat. When the kids had been in the house a couple of minutes the dogs were calmer and could go and say hello and get fuss. We did this quite a few times and now when the doorbell rings they bark while running to bed waiting to get their treat and then after a couple of minutes come and say hello. It does take time and patience though.

There are still a few people they jump up to say hello to but these are the ones who think its cute that he puts his paws around your neck and nuzzles you (including hubby) so i'm fighting a losing battle there. Not sure how having a 34kg lump launch himself at you for a cuddle is cute but he has learnt who he can jump on and who not to, Never attempts to jump up at my 65yr old mom or me cus he'd knock me flat on ass lol.

ppink

Our dogs do the same with most people. Two people have tried different approaches and this is how it went for us:

person 1 first decided they would give the dogs a good shove if they jumped up. this has "calmed" now to raising their knee so the dog lands on their knee....the theory being it is uncomforable for the dog and they dont do it again. All this time they talked to the dogs saying NO! or SIT!. The result is that the dogs still try to jump up on them.

Person 2 completely ignores the dogs. If they try to jump she turns her back to them and does not look or talk to them. the result is that they still get excited but never jump on her and sit very quickly for her to rub them.

If I were you I would try to get someone to keep calling and totally ignore the dog UNTIL he is sitting quietly and then give him something nice......ie he gets attention for being calm.

trio

He's just getting a bit cranky in his old age. Our JRT was like that from day 1, they're very territorial.

What we were advised to do is (a) have them on the lead when people are in the room and (b) give the visitor a treat and tell them to give the dog a treat but not to look at them.

After a few times my dog copped that visitors = treats and now he goes into an ecstacy of delight whenever we have visitors. We don't bother with the lead anymore but will keep up the treats because we don't want him to revert with houseguests.