Help! My English Bull Terrier keeps jumping at me and hurting me!

WhaT’s going on in that crazy head of my dog?

The following are by far not the only but the most likely situations for jumping:

Excitement during play or greeting.

These moments are often a trigger for uncontrolled jumping and running.

Sometimes Bull Terriers go through an “outburst of energy” – that tends to come very sudden for many owners when the dog gets excited – called the “Bully Run”. The younger the dog and the less exercise it gets, the higher are the chances of such outbursts. But they can as well occasionally occur in very well exercised and well trained Bull Terriers, even when older.

While “Bully Runs” are hard to control only by training (although it IS possible) the best way of controlling them is to provide the dog with a balanced ratio of exercise and calm periods each day. “Enough” in this case means that the exercise should be sufficient to allow the dog to release excess energy. But also not too much, because then chances are that the dog will remain at a very high level of excitement all day and thus it will have a harder time to calm down and relax.

Enough exercise will also likely help to reduce the jumping a little.
However, the best way to handle the jumping is and remains: TRAINING.

The Bull Terrier’s bias of going up and jumping may seem hard to handle at first glance.
But in reality it is also a great chance to train different things with your dog:

• impulse control
• the “sit”
• the “stay”
• alternative behaviors during excitement

Now, how do we show our Bull Terrier that we disapprove of the jumping?
How do we train the dog to stay down?

Learn more about how dogs can learn to show the desired behavior on the next page.