What is your preferred method for teaching "off"?

[grover]

At puppy class they had us stand on the leash so he had a little bit of slack, but not much. Then we stood, patted our thighs and talked to him in an upbeat voice, encouraging him to jump. Once he jumped up, we would say off and stand up straight. As soon as all four paws hit the floor, he got a treat. It did not take our lab long at all to learn off.

The trainer said after mastering this, you could easily progress to the puppy not only just having all four paws standing on the ground, but could train to sit at that time as part of the off command.

[orangeblossom]

I'm bookmarking this post, and plan to try grover's suggestion with my dog. It is the one thing he's not good about, and we have kids coming to visit in a few weeks, and I don't want him jumping on them (anybody really, but especially children).

Thanks grover

[orangeblossom]

From what I understand it doesn't teach them mixed signals. We have the book The Power of Positive Training, and it goes into that in more detail (sorry, I can't think of what it says), but I know she mentions that exact thought that it seems counterproductive, but it's not.

Also, that book is really good. Our training got off track, when DH was the sole caretaker (worked in a different place during the week), but we found it helpful before he went to puppy class. I plan to jump start it again and fine tune some things and teach him new tricks.

[redheadbaker]

I agree with you on the mixed signals. We were taught to totally ignore the behavior. Don't say a word, not even "no" or "off." Stand up straight, cross your arms over your chest, turn your back on the dog. Once the dog stops jumping, praise and treat.

I'm mobile and miss my physical keyboard!

[mala]

We started with getting off the couch. We physically dragged her off the couch and then body-blocked to keep her off. Once she had that we started using off if she were laying on us on the couch, or if she put her front paws on the window sill. Then we taught her "up" while patting out shoulders (she's tall enough to reach), and told her "off" when we were done. H also changed how he greeted her, and no longer will acknowledge her until she is sitting and calm. She learned early on not to jump on me. I found out I was pregnant 6 weeks after we got her, and not having her jump on me was a safety issue. I never greeted her if she was jumpy, and when she got jumpy during play I stuck my knee in her chest when she tried to jump on me and ended the game. Sometimes I would grab her paw and hold on when she would jump. She hated that. What I did was kinda extreme, but worked quickly. If I hadn't been pregnant and worried about being knocked over by a 60-100 lb puppy I would have been a lot gentler about it.

[hamster]

Oct 9, 2013 11:52:09 GMT -5 mala said:

We also take this approach. Or at least I do, I think H is a little too gentle. It's not hard, but enough for him to get the message. He's been known to do an NBA-flop though. It's slowly working. He tried to jump on somebody today and as soon as he say the guy's knee go up, he got back down. At this point our challenge is getting him to control his emotions enough, otherwise he's pretty good about not jumping. 

[dirtyred]

For my larger dog, when she looked like she was going to jump up on me, I lifted my knee to block her and said "off."  If she put her paws up on the table, I pushed them down and said "off." The dog learned pretty quickly.