How to prevent my daschund from jumping and standing?

January 25, 2007 5:09 AM

My daschund dog won't stop doing two dangerous things for its spine: jumping and standing. How to stop it?
posted by dcrocha to Pets & Animals (11 answers total)

Why is she jumping/standing? Looking at it from her point of view the reward is the important thing, not the jumping, so its that you have to modify. My guess is that she's jumping into someone's lap or begging, and its worked in the past so she keeps doing it. But I don't know much about dog training, I've just owned daschunds.

For what its worth, jumping into a low chair never did our daschund any harm, although as she got older she'd wait in her "about to jump" pose hoping to get picked up, so I think she knew what she was and wasn't capable of.

One of her predecessors died while trapped at the bottom of a steep bank... but obviously there was a lot of stress and panic and effort involved there.
posted by Leon at 5:29 AM on January 25, 2007

If the dog is lean and fit, this really shouldn't be really that much of a problem. There is only real danger with most dogs if they're fat and their spines haven't got adequate muscular support. I know Dachshunds who do agility and they're lean, fit, active and happy and have no back problems at all.

The way to stop it is to both train the dog and adjust your environment: smaller dogs want to jump and stand because the things they're interested in are higher up than they are, so you can minimize the need for her to jump by getting down on the floor with her, getting ramps, etc. It's great that you're concerned about this, but I would approach it from the standpoint of minimizing the risk to her back intrinsically (i.e. get and keep her lean, active and fit) rather than just trying to stop the behaviour, because you will not be able to 100% prevent these behaviours (you can lessen their frequency, but that can actually make it more of a hazard when she DOES do it, since she won't be physically accustomed to moving that way).
posted by biscotti at 5:54 AM on January 25, 2007

Mine is 9 years old, and has been jumping, standing, romping with two larger dogs, and performing dangerous feats since he was a pup. He seems to have a 6th sense about his capabilities and limitations. Like biscotti said, keeping them fit and trim is more important.
posted by lobstah at 6:07 AM on January 25, 2007

Response by poster: I asked this because I read in Wikipedia (Daschund) that daschunds should be prevented from jumping and standing because doing so could bring them problems in their spinal column.
posted by dcrocha at 7:58 AM on January 25, 2007

This seems a little odd. How to prevent a dog (even a very tiny dog) from exercising its will upon the environment by attempting to interact with it?
If you read that purple box, that particular section of that article has no citations and thusly cannot be traced to any source, reliable or unreliable. I'd go by the rule of three and start looking other places for information, and if it says something of the same thing three other places (not citing the same source), then I'd be more willing to count that as valid. Wikipedia suffers from truthiness on occasion.
posted by lilithim at 8:29 AM on January 25, 2007

Former dachshund owner here, and I got that same advice from breeder and vet. Biscotti's advice is the best -- don't reward her for standing up or jumping up, and do what you can to bring the activity down to her. You can also buy pet ramps if she really wants to get up on a certain couch or chair. We built a wooden ramp for our little guy so he could get out to the back yard without going down steps.
posted by handful of rain at 8:38 AM on January 25, 2007

My dog is dachshund/terrier & I'd read that before too. My bed is really high and she was jumping on & off it, and it really freaked me out because it seemed like an awfully long way for her. The thud always scared me when she jumped off. So I started keeping that room closed off and now when I'm going into it I'll pick her up & put her on the bed. She's gotten to where she doesn't even try to jump on or off it now, she just waits for me to do the work & put her there... like the spoiled princess she is.

Otherwise I was considering just getting one of those little dog stairs. When she gets older I still might, just to save her spine.
posted by miss lynnster at 9:16 AM on January 25, 2007

The Dachshund Back Digest summarizes a bunch of discussions on the doxie mailing lists about back issues.
posted by mendel at 9:26 AM on January 25, 2007

We have dog stairs for the end of the bed. But other than that we don't really do anything. Just keeping her fit and trim with frequent walks and no table scraps and hopefully our girl will be alright. She's about 5 1/2. She also wrestles with a 60 lb bulldog.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 1:15 PM on January 25, 2007

I worked as a vet tech for 3 years and saw plenty of back injuries in both obese and fit dachshunds. The problem is that you never know when, what (will cause) or if your dachshund will have back problems. So what you do is you try to prevent back injuries from occurring in the first place. One very important way of doing this as Biscotti says is to maintain a healthy weight. However, as I stated above, I have seen back injuries (that required surgery) in healthy, fit dachshunds. What you can do to prevent that is discourage jumping and standing on hind legs. One effective way of discouraging jumping and standing is to ignore your dog when he/she performs these activities.. do not give any attention at all to a dog who is standing on its hind legs or jumping for attention. As far as jumping on things, you can have stools or ramps placed around your house to assist your dog onto furniture or up and down steps. I would also like to say that I have seen many dachshund injured by simply being carried improperly, usually by children. You always want to support a dachshund's back while carrying it.
posted by citizngkar at 3:17 PM on January 25, 2007

How do you carry a dachsund properly so that its back is supported?
posted by grouse at 6:41 AM on March 10, 2007