# Is this Possible for a Hav?



## HavaneseSoon (Nov 4, 2008)

Can you train a Hav to be still and not jump all over you when you are coming home? 

Personally, I love the way a Hav is so excited when they see you, but dh prefers the no jumping, so I am coming to you.....

Now, if it was a bigger dog, then I would say no jumping and to be still, but Havs are so little, just how much damage can they do?


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## good buddy (Feb 20, 2007)

They can still scare or knock over small children. They can run nylons. They can still tear the delicate skin of the elderly or infirm and they can still be irritating to guests who don't like dogs jumping on them.  If you come up with the solution please let me know! With four dogs, the problem is now compounded. Still, I know what you mean though, it can be fun to get mobbed byt he happy crew, if you aren't in a hurry with arms full of groceries!


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## DorothyS (Aug 11, 2009)

We're trying to train all our guests to make the dogs sit for a treat before they get to "greet" them. Then afterwards, of course, the dogs jump all over them anyway. The Havanese dance seems to be such a natural part of their make-up, but I suppose with persistence they can be trained to refrain. Personally, I love their happy dance and none of our friends or relatives minds, so we are not being very consistent with this part of their training.


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## mckennasedona (Feb 20, 2007)

I have always made my comings and goings very low key. I basically ignore my girls until I have put down my stuff and taken off my jacket. They are very good about waiting. Now, this doesn't apply when guests come over.........all bets are off. Our good friends don't mind being jumped on so they are no help.
This scenario doesn't apply to my Sheltie. She doesn't jump but oh boy, does she bark! I count myself lucky that it's the only time she barks, but still, I'd love her to wait quietly until I'm ready to greet her like the Havs do.


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## Kathie (Jul 31, 2008)

We don't have to worry about it with anyone but my dad & son but she goes crazy when I come in. I ignore her until I put down my purse get situated but that doesn't stop her from jumping all over. It doesn't really bother me so I haven't done anything about it so far. I do make her stay downstairs (there are steps into the house) until her Grandpa gets down - he is frail and I'm afraid she will knock him down. She pretty much listens to me about that.


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## Sheri (Oct 11, 2008)

I'm in the same situation as Susan. Tucker stays calm (relatively speaking) when I get home. He waits until I've put my stuff down, then I say something "where's my Tucker?!" and he runs to me and rolls over for his tummy rubs. I've never allowed him to jump on me. I hope to be able to do therapy work with him, and that isn't a good behavior for Therapy Dogs.

However, I live alone, and he thinks those manners only apply to Mom, everyone else is fair game. The problem with training him not to jump on people is that 3 out of 4 people encourage him in this! It is impossible to "train" people the calm way to respond when he only see's them occasionally, or just once. Argh!!


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## Redorr (Feb 2, 2008)

You can train them with the enormous and continuous help of all who enter your house. Everyone needs to ignore the dog when they enter. Turn their back to the dog, no voice or eye contact, move away from the dog, never facing the dog. As you can imagine, this is tough. Most people who visit like the attention. But consistency here is the only way it will work. Combined with their behavior, you can train your dog to sit & stay and they are only released when you or the visitor gives a treat. Again, this is hard, takes a long time if you don't have the sit & stay already solid. Consistency does pay off. Another command that you may need is "off". Use this one when you are outside the house and you can't get everyone on board with the ignore concept. If you keep and handful of tiny treats you can work on the "off" when outside - but you must be 100% consistent with all passers-by. 

Sound like fun? It isn't. It is a lot of work. This is one of those areas where you need to decide if "perfect" is what you want - back to Missy's thread. 

That said, I have trained on this because Lola gets so excited at greeting guests (and me) that she can get into a stress frenzy and starts wheezing and sort of choking. So we don't encourage the greeting dance or anything. Now she stands at the door waiting to be greeted. She is a bit annoyed at being ignored. Then she goes into the living room and waits for someone to sit down so she can climb up next to them on the sofa. And then she cuddles a bit and then lies down next to the visitor and snoozes. Everyone seems pretty happy with it. 

It is a worthwhile effort if the behavior is really something you want to/need to curtail. Otherwise, I'd say focus on something more productive is the sit/stay or recall world.


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## Redorr (Feb 2, 2008)

One more thought, Linda - you should be able to train Dexter to not jump up on DH specifically. He needs to do the ignore moves consistently. It's worth it to work on it for a few weeks.


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## HavaneseSoon (Nov 4, 2008)

I really love the happy excitement from Dexter when I come home...it tells me he missed me and he is really happy to see me. 

This is what Dexter does...he wags his tag and his whole body, jumping like a rabbit, whimpering, jumping toward my mouth (Maybe he thinks I have food to give him or something), jumping on my legs, you name it, he does it. I mean he is really excited! 

He will sit when you tell him in this state of excitement, but he is still excited....what do you do after he sits, or you are telling him "off" as you walk to the kitchen and put the stuff on the counter. 

Then I greet Dexter and Dexter will weave very fast through my legs with lots of excitement, then after a 3-5 minutes or so, he does calm down
I usually have something in my hands and I come in the house pretty low keyed. But, Dexter is crazy with excitement.

Your thoughts....


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## murphymoesmamma (Apr 1, 2009)

Oh my I guess I am not such a good Hav owner. I love how Murphy wags his whole body when he sees me and does the hava lotta lovin for mom dance that he does when he sees me. He always greets my customers by standing on his back legs and propping himself on their leg. Without fail he gets people to pet and talk to him, as a matter of fact the bank that we have one of our business accounts with bring him a bag of doggy biscuits when they visit!


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## brotdan (Dec 22, 2008)

We have 2 havs and we fixed the problem...we just don't let anyone in the house that don't love our babies...


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## Tom King (Aug 2, 2006)

You can have it both ways. Ignore them and they learn to wait and be patient. Greet them and they will greet you. 

We have a pack of 12 and when we explain to people that they have to walk in with no eye contact, no talking, and no interaction with the dogs it will work if they remember. But most of the time they forget as soon as they come in and see the dogs and are greeted by 12 dogs vying for their attention.


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## luv3havs (Jul 27, 2007)

Tom,
I would just love to see the welcoming committee of 12 dogs! Aw, please do video it for us to see.
It must be a pretty hysterical scene, if the guests decide to give them attention.

Our 2 are fine with me because I can stick to the plan, but DH is hopeless.

I've been trying to train him since we got Chico 5 years ago.LOL
Our adult children can't follow the plan either so we have lots of jumping going on.


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## Sheri (Oct 11, 2008)

brotdan said:


> We have 2 havs and we fixed the problem...we just don't let anyone in the house that don't love our babies...


Well, there you go! Simple solution, after all! (Ha!)


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## Anne Streeter (Apr 14, 2009)

Well, I hope this lasts - after we did the ignoring therapy for a while, Luci started greeting us by rolling over on her back, tail wagging wildly. We have encouraged that by immediately giving lots of attention and tummy rubs. The bonus is - no more peeing all over the floor. However, this does not yet apply to visitors who still receive the frantic, damp greeting that you all are describing!
It is soooo cute to walk in and see her lying there anticipating a wonderful reunion!


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## HavaneseSoon (Nov 4, 2008)

I have told dh to ignore Dexter so many times................it is not funny. He is the one who gets upset....not me. 

You know, it is really hard to ignore these cutie pies. I really look forward to coming home just to see Dexter. 

Ok, I will try to ignore, no talking, no eye contact, and face away from Dexter when I been away from Dexter for 14 hours.....Where are my ear plugs? I can do this, let's just call this Dexter's new trick.

(Talking to myself).....I wonder if I can practice this new trick just by going out the door and coming back several times a day? And.....give Dexter treats! First lesson is tommorow...........(Talking to self) Don't forget your keys, just in case you lock yourself out of the house, remember the last time!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

luv2havs said:


> Tom,
> I would just love to see the welcoming committee of 12 dogs! Aw, please do video it for us to see.
> It must be a pretty hysterical scene, if the guests decide to give them attention.
> 
> ...


We listened and did as Pam and Tom asked when we visited. The dogs were very quiet as we entered. We let everyone sniff the "new people" and just kept talking to Pam and Tom, without looking at the dogs or talking to them. Within a very few minutes, everyone was calm, and they were politely coming up one at a time to put paws on our knees and see "hi". We could call one over, and the rest would just be doing their thing in other parts of the room. It was pretty cool. They were definitely friendly, but very sweet and polite about it.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

Anne streeter said:


> Well, I hope this lasts - after we did the ignoring therapy for a while, Luci started greeting us by rolling over on her back, tail wagging wildly. We have encouraged that by immediately giving lots of attention and tummy rubs. The bonus is - no more peeing all over the floor. However, this does not yet apply to visitors who still receive the frantic, damp greeting that you all are describing!
> It is soooo cute to walk in and see her lying there anticipating a wonderful reunion!


It's funny. Kodi is a bit stand-offish with people he doesn't know... at least for the first few minutes. He does get excited about people entering who he knows, but his way of showing it is to race in little circles, and throw himself upside-down at their feet for belly rubs.

He does get really excited and jumps up and down over food, but he doesn't jump ON us... he just bounces like a jumping bean in front of us!<g> And I can't say we "trained" any of this... this is just the way he naturally acts.


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## TheVintageVamp (Oct 14, 2009)

Murray is pretty good about everyone except me. All bets are off when I arrive home from work. Of course, it doesn't help any that DH encourages him...."look Murray, mommy's home" "Yeah!!!! It's mommy time, she's home....oh joy"....lol, I think he does it because he gets a kick out of seeing how beside himself with happiness Murray gets.

He takes a bit of time to warm up to other people, so it hasn't been an issue and DH is pretty much always here.


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## Redorr (Feb 2, 2008)

HavaneseSoon said:


> Don't forget your keys, just in case you lock yourself out of the house, remember the last time!


I did exactly that when I was first working on Lola's separation anxiety. I was only doing the 10 seconds in and out the door thing. And then suddenly 15 minutes into it, I somehow locked the door. It took me about 10 minutes of working on things to get back in the door. And of cource she was in a full tizzy when I got back in there. The moral of the story is: wear a key on your neck or wrist!


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## HavaneseSoon (Nov 4, 2008)

Redorr said:


> I did exactly that when I was first working on Lola's separation anxiety. I was only doing the 10 seconds in and out the door thing. And then suddenly 15 minutes into it, I somehow locked the door. It took me about 10 minutes of working on things to get back in the door. And of cource she was in a full tizzy when I got back in there. The moral of the story is: wear a key on your neck or wrist!


I can relate very well.....I was working on the same thing with Dexter...in the morning, me still in jammies, in the Winter (40 degree weather), no jacket on....I had not planned on being outside long, did have my footies on, had short sleeve shirt on, no makeup on, dh out of town.... I was sooooooooooooooo embarrassed! And......no way of breaking into my own house!

Oh! I did not have my phone with me either (who takes their phone with them, just to go in and out?).

I knew my next door neighbor had a key, but she was not home! So, I went across the street to my young neighbor. I told her my story and she was smiling.... I told her my story and she said another neighbor had a key to the house. So.................I ended up waiting at least an hour! My poor Dexter was stuck in the house all by himself!

Anyway.....:focus:

Tomorrow is another day...


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