Solving the Right Problem

Jumping up - solving the right problem

Pinpointing your problem is essential to finding a solution. If you are a bit 'loosey goosey' with your assessment of your problem, you might not be solving the right problem, or even understanding what that problem really is.

Working this through may take a few iterations to get the details right. On a first call with clients I ask a lot of questions, and it's all about ruling things out so that I can get to the root of the issue.

Problem Solving Jumping up

Let’s use jumping up as an example to illustrate. The headline problem is this:

My dog is jumping up at visitors.

It’s a simple statement that seems to sum up the problem. It would be easy to jump straight in with some training. The usual training that is a go-to for many trainers is keeping four feet on the floor, turning our backs, or asking people to bend down to the dog’s level to say hello.

For me, that statement - My dog is jumping up at visitos - does not give me much information, certainly not enough,  and I need to find out more. I need to rule things out.

The sorts of questions I might ask are:

• Is it every person that comes in the house?
• Is it every time?
• Is it only certain people?
• Is it only at certain times of the day and when he is tired from a walk he can’t be bothered? And so on.  

By asking these sorts of questions, you can start to pinpoint the problem:

• My dog is jumping up on visitors who come into the house.
• My dog is jumping up on visitors who come to the house, but especially those who come in all excited to see him and wave their arms in the air.
• My dog is jumping up on visitors who come to the house, but especially those who come in all excited to see him and wave their arms in the air, but if they bend down to his level, he is calmer as he gets to say hello.
• My dog is jumping up on visitors who come to the house, but especially those who come in all excited to see him and wave their arms in the air, but if they bend down to his level, he is calmer. When my friend who ignores him comes in, he goes to play with a toy. When deliveries come, I put him in the back room.
• My dog is jumping up on visitors who come to the house, but especially those who come in all excited to see him and wave their arms in the air, but if they bend down to his level, he is calmer. When my friend who ignores him comes in, he goes to play with a toy. When deliveries come, I put him in the back room. He is far worse during the day, particularly after he has just eaten as she is very excitable and  trying to get your attention.

Can you see what is happening?

We are starting to define the problem and what exactly it looks like.

By doing this we already start to see the glimmers of goals and solutions. You are probably also starting to see that there are a lot of influencing factors on your decision-making process which we will discuss shortly.

Solve the right problemLet’s continue to use the jumping up example to think about the question of solving the right problem.

Hattie, a young Yorkshire terrier cross, was jumping up on other residents in the sheltered accommodation her owner lived in.

Simple? Not so much. Let’s add some more layers.

• Hattie was a young vibrant dog who craved attention. For her owner she was a great conversation starter. She loved people and cuddles, and that’s why she had chosen her.  
• She had permission to have Hattie live with her as long as she was not causing a problem with any of the other residents. 
• Hattie LOVED the other residents, she was a real people dog.
• If people brought their hands down to Hattie's level, she was fine, no jumping up. If you paid no attention to her, she did not hassle you.
• Asking some of the residents to bend down to Hattie’s level to say hello was fraught with danger as their balance and physical capabilities were variable. Her owner didn't want Hattie jumping up on them, so contact was limited which was frustrating for everyone.

There was a potential conflict with being safe and being sociable. The problem was less about jumping up and more about how we could teach Hattie to meet people appropriately, and to engineer the situation so that she did not practice the behaviour. 

We had to be creative, and our solution was to reinforce no jumping up unless asked.  We taught Hattie to jump up two front paws to knee level on cue, which meant that this could happen with residents either standing up, or more safely sitting down. 

Everyone was happy.

The Missing Piece

The missing piece of jumping up training for me is about how you get your dog to understand how to interact with people. If we are constantly reinforcing our dogs for four feet on the floor, feeding the floor to keep them down at feet level, asking them to sit, shaping in to a sit, or whatever else you might try ...

when do they get to say hello?

If we don't address them learning how to say hello, there will still likely be frustration in the dog, and when they get to say hello, over-excitement.

Most peope want their dogs to go up and say hello calmly,. then get on with their own thing.

My top tactics for this are:

• Gentle hands down at the dog's head level, palms up and hands close to your knees. This means the dog can come in to your hands and interact with them. You hands barely move. So often when I do this, dogs will either come in and put a part of their body (often their back at the butt end!) next to my fingers to have a scrunchy scratch. Hands move slowly and calmly, a bit like a slow massage.
• A nose to hand touch to go say hello then back to the owner for reinforcement. This means the contact with the person if brief and all the reinforcement comes from you, the dog's human.
• Food around the feet, so the dog can interact calmly around the person.
• Or a combination of any of the above.

This is about helping the dog understand they can interact calmly, start to make good choices around humans (no-one likes to be micro-managed) and often means the dog 'gets over it' very qucikly.

Lots of rehearsals of this and you will have a dog understanding that meeting people does not have to be about high excitement.

Hold a Jumping Up Party!

Just to finish off, my favourite jumping up story is from years ago where a large collie was struggling with getting over-excited around people. His lovely owner and I chatted at the end of class and the next week she said they had a Jumping Up Party. She invited friends around, briefed them on what she wanted them to do, so her dog had multiple opportunities to rehearse the behaviour that was more socially acceptable. Amazing work, and what a difference in that dog the following week.

I have used jumping up as example, but this could apply to any training problem. Pinpoint the problem so that you are solving the right problem. Be creative, and put in the practice, and you should have a great resolution on any training problem that you are facing.