Jumping up

At Beginning Obedience at Unleashed in Evanston last night, trainer Meghan introduced us to the solutions for one of the most vexing habits of young dogs: jumping up on people.

Trooper and I sat that one out. He's trained to jump up on me. That's how hearing service dogs get their handlers' attention in order to lead them to the sources of the sounds they're trained to work.

But we do have to work on his jumping up on people who arrive at our house. That has not been a terrible problem because he is so little, being a miniature schnauzer mix. Yet he does need to learn his manners, trainer Laura from Dogs for the Deaf told us, and the best way is to make him sit at the door when someone knocks—and hold that sit.

Now that he's beginning to lead me to the door reliably when there's a knock, we're focusing on that sit.