Willow does this thing when she's over threshold. Whether it's through fear or excitement, if she goes too far, she'll jump up, right to your face, often whacking you in the nose with her nose. Which hurts - a lot! She'll do it once, without any apparent warning, and then that's it done, which makes it super hard to train out. When she's been scared by something, I tend to get down close to her to avoid it happening, or at least I'm aware that it's likely to happen, so I can try to prevent it happening either by managing it (standing on her lead, holding her collar, putting my hands down to block her), or by trying to calm her down. In the last week or so, we've been collecting our almonds. This means shaking the almond trees so the ripe nuts fall to the floor, then picking them up. This is a great game for the dogs, but it's become increasingly exciting for Willow and we've had a few episodes of this jumping behaviour. So last night, I decided to try some desensitisation by having her sat way back from the tree while J shook it, and keeping her on lead for collecting. She did really well; she was excited, but more than happy to listen to me and perform behaviours that I asked for. She stayed at heel while I collected the almonds and she seemed, to all outward appearance, like a normal, happy Labrador. But then, out of the blue, bang, a head to the nose. I'm getting used to understanding her body language when she's over threshold from fear, and then, when it's a bad episode, she seizes up and is unable to perform even the most basic of cues. This is something different, though. She clearly is in a state where she can't control herself - or feels she has to perform this jump as a coping mechanism, yet she is more than capable of following normal cues; sit, down, heel, close, front, touch etc etc. I'm going to keep her away when we collect almonds for the foreseeable future, because it's not fair on her to let her get so over-excited, but I do find it strange that she behaves like this.
Sounds like you are doing the right things. Homer went through a phase of jumping up on me from the side or behind with his head level with mine, it's really quite scary. Well he still does sometimes but we manage it better. It started at our agility classes which were sooooo over exciting, he also did it when we walk off the path or I start to run. So we manage it, stopped agility (partly for other reasons) walk on the path and don't run unless I want his immediate attention. Holding him to my side on a short lead giving him no attention whatsoever until he was calm helped.
When Benson gets overexcited, his eyes go round, he jumps up....but at distance, as we worked so hard on him not jumping up on people. Saying that out the blue, Bramble head butted me HARD the other day..I was in the grower shed (home for young chickens..) came out and she leapt right at me. Hope that was a one off!
Yes, this is very different to "jumping up at people", which is (touch wood) cured now. She's not done that in forever. I definitely see this as some sort of coping mechanism for her. It's a completely different physical action - exuberant jumping up would be her front feet coming off the ground, and maybe doing a "happy dance" with the back feet. This, on the other hand, is a fast and frenzied spring with as much height as possible, the back feet coming off the ground by eighteen inches or more. And, as soon as she's landed, that's it. I say we cured the jumping up, but what I mean is, they no longer jump up at other people, and generally don't at us. But we do allow a certain amount to show their enthusiasm at seeing us when we come back home - it's just not as prolonged or OTT as it was when they were young, they don't do it if we're carrying anything, and we can tell them not to if we don't want them to. It's nice to have your dog saying "Hi! I missed you!", though
Riley is five now and generally a very sensible chap! He's never been an in your face dog and he's not a licker either. He will, however, perform this exact behaviour on the occasions he's over excited! he's a silly sausage really under that sensible exterior
Well, so long as she is happy, and not scared...what's wrong with over excited? It's not like it's a harmful thing in itself. My dog spends 90% of his life being deliriously over excited. Obvs, don't want you to have a broken nose, but I often just ignore Charlie and he calms down...eventually, anyway.
I'm just not sure it's fair to have her in a state where she has to resort to something like this to cope. I'll take some video if I can to show you. She's excited - no doubt about that, and it's why I didn't take her away from the situation immediately, because she's generally such a worry-wort, it's nice to see her so happy. She squeaks to have us shake the tree sooner, and she'll jump up at the tree to try to get to the almonds before they fall. She loves it so, so much. But there's obviously some level of excitement that she can't cope with, and so resorts to this jumping. It just doesn't seem healthy to have her that stressed, even if it's a fun stress! But I do find it weird that she is so excited, yet able to follow my cues.
Well, you are there and know your dog. But from your description, it sounds like she is happy, excited and forgetting her manners momentarily and jumping up. No biggy, I'd say. Is this really a 'coping' mechanism and not an over excited dog that you should just ignore for jumping up and all get on with the family fun of shaking almond trees?
Isn't it a bit like the zoomies when they just don't quite know what to do with themselves? It doesn't worry me when Riley does it, he calms down again
Years ago at Flyball there was a Border Collie who was a 'face jumper' and one day he knocked his owner's two front teeth clean out of her head! She was left holding them both in her hand. I kid you not.
I was going to reply by explaining Ripple's behaviour when he is over excited, but Oberon's post has made me forget what I was going to say .
Pretty much stopped us in our tracks too. The dog's name was Jock. Beautiful dog. And a great friend to the field of reconstructive dentistry.
Haha! I will honestly try ad get a video. I do think it's different to regular excitable jumping up. It's a singular, explosive event that could do pretty serious damage. But, most of all, I'm concerned for her welfare. It just seems ... unhealthy ... to me.
This is very interesting to me as I started reading Control Unleashed last night and am already finding that I am going to have to really work to decide what behaviors seem to be just happy, excited, playful and exuberant and what might be indicating stress or anxiety. I don't think Edsel will ever be a low key dog. Everything he does he does with great abandon, at high speed and with his whole self. But I do know that he needs to learn to calm down, rest and learn to chill at times. I don't want to dampen his natural rambunctious personality because I believe that can be stressful but I want to reduce the impact that his "over the top" style has had on his health at times with things like respiratory infections and bloody urine. I think it must be harder to try to distinguish these behaviors in naturally high energy and hyper-focused dogs.
