How to Train Your Dog to Not Jump on Furniture

Hello Alice, Thank you so much for you kind reply! It is always so nice to hear that my advice was helpful! I am excited for you guys and your fun with training ahead. Also, check out Kikopup and Zach George on YouTube for some fun how-to-videos to teach tricks and get ideas. Thanks! Caitlin Crittenden

Hello Alice, What you described is called the "Zoomies!". Puppies commonly do it and some adults will continue doing it also. It's great that you walk him so much but I suspect he would also benefit a lot from mental exercise. Physical exercise is very good for a dog but some dogs with wonderful endurance will actually return even more excited from it. It you can make the walk more mentally challenging dogs tend to feel more relaxed and tired. I suggest teaching pup a structured heel for walks. Train pup to walk slightly behind you and focus on you during the walk. Practice things like "Doggie pushups" - which is Sit, Down, and Stand all together - changing the order of the commands and repeating a few times so that pup really has to listen and work. You can also walk pup on a long curled up leash, so that the leash is 6 feet in busy area, but you can let out another 15 or so feet in more deserted areas and practice Down-Stay, Sit-Stay, and Come on the leash periodically. Incorporating a lot of obedience into the walk, making it hard enough to be a bit challenging mentally and require a lot of self-control and focus from pup can really help wear him out, teach better obedience, build respect and trust in your relationship, and make pup feel more satisfied. I also suggest shortening some of the walks and using that time to have training sessions with pup, where you teach pup new commands, harder versions of current commands, or fun tricks - to keep his brain busy. Good mental stimulation has been proven to be twice as tiring than physical exercise alone for a dog. My previous dog (now past away after 12 years) was a Border Collie, bred to run all day in the field. While he was young, no amount of physical exercise I could give would completely wear him out (he just got in better shape and could walk further!). In addition to normal length walks I spent 30 minutes every day teaching him new tricks or harder versions of current commands, such as going from basic obedience to off-leash obedience commands, tricks like: how to pick up toys, how to dance on his hind legs, take a sock off my foot, bring me a tissue when I sneezed, play dead, roll over, close doors, ect...He eventually learned over 90 different commands. I didn't have a goal of teaching him that many words but it was just a nice side effect of stimulating him mentally through training for 30 minutes each day - overtime the commands added up as he got better and better at training. The training kept him out of trouble by helping him feel calmer while he was young and energetic, and he loved it! Perhaps your pup would be great at something similar. Best of luck training, Caitlin Crittenden