Jumping.

Question

Stetson   I have a 8 month old, male mini aussie. He has a major problem about jumping, he is constantly jumping on people, and knocking over kids. I am worried that if we dont put a stop to it now that when he is older and bigger it will be worse. I have tried many methods, such as ignoring him whem he jumps and petting when he doesnt, and others. But this is a big proble and need help!

Answer
Ignoring works, but only if everyone in the dog's life ignores his jumping, AND gives him positive reinforcement for another behavior.  Trainers call that "DRI" - differential reinforcement for an incompatible behavior, such as "sit" or "stand."  The problem is that *someone* is reinforcing the jumping, either by giving eye contact (attention), pushing him, speaking to him, etc.  And, even if they only do it once in a while, to the dog it represents something we call "intermittent reinforcement" which is actually one of the most powerful ways to get a dog to repeat a behavior!  Petting is insufficient reinforcement for most dogs - they prefer meat;-))  You can proactively train your dog to have his feet remain on the ground by using clicker training - there's a good video example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC_OKgQFgzw.  For an explanation of clicker training: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wv1uvvqaSw.