Our eager-to-please mutt developed the habit very early of executing a small jump into the air whenever we came back into the house. I never realized it was a modification of the "greeting instinct." I usually pat her on the head, but now I reach down and touch my nose to hers if I have time. I appreciate that she trained herself not to jump on us because it made us unhappy.
K9joy Education: The solution to the problem behind problem behavior by Mogens Eliasen: Now, understanding that the dog jumps at you because it has a strong need to greet you and wants to be polite and do a courteous greeting by making nose-nose contact with you, responding with something like pushing a knee in its chest is outright cruel! If you instead would simply squat down so your nose came within reach, then you would take away the main reason for the jumping. The dog will then quickly learn to greet you without jumping - without your having to "throw a wrench" into the fine machinery that makes your dog happy.
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