If your husky has a habit of jumping up at you then you’re probably wondering why and what you can do about it. This post will give you a number of reasons why your husky might start jumping and give you some ways to stop the behavior.
So, why does your husky jump up at you? There are a number of reasons why your husky might start jumping. Possible reasons include excitement and trying to express its excitement by licking you at the face, looking for attention and a lack of training when it was younger.
And, what can you do to stop it? There are a number of things that you can do to stop the behavior. The first thing that you should do is to ensure that you’re giving your husky lots of exercise to ensure that it is properly stimulated. You can also train it not to by teaching it to sit and stay when it’s tempted to jump. You can also try ignoring the behavior and giving it attention once it has stopped this can stop the jumping over time.
Before you try to get your husky to stop jumping it’s important to take the time to figure out why it might be doing it. By doing so you will be able to make it a lot easier to correct the behavior.
Possible reasons for your husky’s jumping
There are a handful of reasons that your husky might start jumping that I will mention below.
Excitement
The most probable reason for the jumping is that it is excited. When huskies get excited it’s common for them to express their excitement by jumping up. They do it because they want to greet you at the face and because their mother would feed them from the face as puppies and they would jump up.
This type of jumping can be stopped with training using the methods in the section below. One method in particular that you should try would be to teach it to stay and sit and then to reward it for doing so. You can watch how it’s done in the video in the next section.
Related: Why doesn’t my husky like cats?
Attention
Huskies are a breed that was bred to drag sleighs for hours in freezing weather on a daily basis. With that being the case, they need a lot of exercise to be properly stimulated. If they don’t get enough exercise then it can encourage hyperactive behavior which can include jumping. If your husky isn’t getting a lot of exercise at the moment then one of the first things for you to do would be to make sure that it does.
Related: Why does my husky hump me?
Not enough training
Jumping is a habit that huskies pick up when they’re young. Their mothers would feed them from the mouth and they would have to jump up to get it. If the behavior isn’t corrected then they will keep that habit.
With that being the case, it’s important that you take the time to train your husky not to jump by using the training techniques in the section below.
Related: Why does my dog jump on my back?
Fear
If your husky doesn’t normally jump on you and it starts to do so then it could be a signal that something is wrong. When things are wrong huskies will often do things that are out of character so you should consider what might be wrong that is causing the jumping. Perhaps it’s in pain, there’s someone at the door or maybe there’s an emergency.
How to get your husky to stop jumping
There are a number of things that you can do to get your husky to stop jumping up at you that I will. mention below.
Ignore
If you think that your husky is doing the jumping because it is looking to get attention then one option for you to try would be to ignore the behavior. To do this you would simply leave the room when it starts jumping and then return when it is being well behaved and reward it for doing so. If you do this method it’s important not to give it any attention at all when it starts jumping since even negative attention would still be giving it attention.
Redirect
You could also try the redirect method where you tell your husky to do something different such as to sit, lay or to roll when it starts jumping and then to reward it for doing so. By doing this you’ll be able to divert its attention into doing something else and you’ll be able to get it out of the habit of jumping over time.
Train it not to
You can also train it not to jump up at you by making it sit and stay when it gets excited.
To do this do as follows:
- Get some treats that your husky likes
- Get it to sit. If you haven’t taught your husky how to sit yet then you can do this by luring the treat above its head until it sits naturally
- Tell it to stay and then wait for half a second then give it a treat. The idea is to reward it for staying sat and keeping its attention on you so you want to reward it before it has a chance to fail.
- Do the same as above but each time increase the duration that you get it to stay.
- When your husky is able to stay for over 15 seconds start to introduce distractions such as the squeaking of a toy. Start out with minor distractions such as simply showing it the toy and then build up to harder ones such as rolling the toy in front of it.
You can watch the video below to see how it is done.
Give lots of exercise
If your husky isn’t currently getting a lot of exercise then an easy way to alleviate a lot of the problems it may be causing would be to simply give it a lot of exercise.
An easy way to give it a lot of exercise without needing to put in a lot of effort would be to teach it how to play fetch. This is ideal since you can get your husky to do lots of running over a short time frame without needing to run a lot yourself.
You could also try walking your husky with other dogs. This can give your husky a lot of exercise since it will burn a lot of energy by playing with the other dogs.
Things to consider
When you’re teaching your husky to stop jumping there are some things that you should keep in mind that I will mention below.
Be patient
Teaching your husky not to jump up will likely take multiple training sessions. So, if your husky starts jumping up again after you have trained it not to don’t be discouraged and train it not to again. Over time not jumping will turn into a habit and the behavior will stop.
Don’t punish
It might be tempting to punish your husky for jumping but this wouldn’t be recommended. By doing so you will be risking causing other bad behaviors such as distrust, destruction, not listening to you and even aggression.
Be consistent
When you’re teaching your husky to stop jumping it is important that you be consistent with the training. If you just teach it to stop jumping once and stop training it after that then it is likely that the jumping behavior will come back.
Related questions
Why does my husky jump up at strangers? Jumping up is how huskies will often greet new people. To get this behavior to stop you should redirect its attention on to a training exercise such as sitting and staying that you have taught it in the past.