Hello, I am just curious. My chewy will not jump up on anything. For example, the couch. We have tried to teach him to jump up but he just barks at us, as if to say "I want to but I'm scared". We have to pick him up every time. He also will not do any stairs that are more than 4. He will not go up or down our basement stairs. I also believe he is scared of heights which may be the issue but I was just wondering if this is a havanese thing or just a chewy thing? Thanks

If I were you I would be so thankful. Mine used to jump on and off furniture. Then Mia hurt her back one time and is no longer supposed to do any stairs or jump off furniture. It is much harder to train them later to not jump on and off furniture once they get used to it. You could train your dog to use furniture ramps. Some say that a dog will not jump up on anything it would not feel comfortable jumping off of. This may be true, but Mia would still try to jump after her back injury. I have retrained them both. Also, not sure how old your dog is but dogs who are not mature should definitely not be jumping off furniture.

Thanks for the reply. I guess it's a Chewy thing, which is alright

You didn’t say his age, and depending how old he is, it may just be developmental. Some do it sooner than others. And MANY are afraid of steep, dark, shiny basement stairs even when they will do other stairs in the house. (This kept our kitty litter box “safe” the whole time our kitty lived! )

But mudpuppymama is right that NOT jumping up on furniture has its advantages. Like her Mia, Kodi is recovering from a bad shoulder injury, and is not allowed to go DOWN stairs or jump OFF furniture right now. (and for a long time, I’m afraid!) Of course, HE doesn’t understand the difference between up and down or why it’s bad for him right now. So he is gated out of the family room and away from the stairs, and there is an ex-pen around the couch in my office. When he snuggles on our bed at night, I have to keep him on a leash (we call it his “reminder”) to keep him from jumping off by mistake. It’s a pain in the neck!

You have my sympathies Karen. It is definitely a pain in the neck. Oddly enough one thing that happened to me was we got a new sofa. For some reason, they have never tried to jump on the new one! I am not sure why...they were all over the old one. Now don’t go telling your husband you need a new sofa now!!! This may just be a fluke!!!

LOL! Trouble is, I don’t WANT a new sofa. We have wonderful, comfy furniture in our family room, and I like it just the way it is. I DO think I’m going to move the smaller sleeper couch out of my office. We put that in there when my kids were still living at home, and we needed that for the occasional guest. Now my oler son and his family are moving out again (hopefully for good? ) and we’ll have two empty bedrooms again. So I’ll put that sofa bed upstairs, replace it with a nice reading chair and have some extra room in my office!

Scout has never jumped up on anything. Truffles bounces while walking and is a running jumper. Your lucky Chewy doesn't jump because he is much safer staying grounded. 😊

I agree - you may be really lucky in the long run that he doesn't like to jump. Perry tore his cruciated ligament three times in 2018-2019 which resulted in crate rest (3 months each the 1st two times) and then knee surgery last year. For all of these times "crate rest" meant no running or jumping so if he was out of his crate I had to keep him tethered to me because he is physically incapable of NOT jumping up and down on things (he'll even jump on/off the couch as part of his zoomies around the living room). It got to a point when he was feeling better each of those times that even tethered with the leash didn't always stop him from trying to jump down (or even up - and he was on a 4 foot leash at the time and STILL tried to jump on the couch!)

Even though his leg is fully healed now, he probably should limit the jumping (he also has a twisted front leg, so between the two it is probably better if he doesn't) - but while I know that in the long-run we should try to stop it, the only way to do it is to keep him confined which isn't something I'm willing to do for the rest of his life (he's only 4).

So, count yourself lucky that you won't have to either retrain later OR deal with a situation where you are pretty sure that retraining will be almost impossible

I NEVER have had a problem with Patti NOT jumping. At 3 mos old she was jumping and climbing over pet gates.

I honestly don't know how you can keep a dog from jumping. You maybe be able to stop them once in a while, if you know in advance what's getting ready to happen and you can NOT encourage jumping.

But, stopping a Havanese from jumping when they were once used as Circus Dogs because of their agility, I don't know how that is possible other than confining them in a crate, which we only do when needed.

I don't know the age of Chewy but I'm guessing he's pretty young. He'll probably outgrow some of his fear.

In case anyone is interested, I managed to get my two jumpers to be NON jumpers and I never confined them in a crate. First of all, they need to have a place they absolutely LOVE that is near to where the “action is”. For us, that is in the family room/kitchen area. They both have super comfy dog mattresses and blankets in a crate. The crate is on sliders and can be moved around to be closer to us if necessary. Both my dogs are free to go in and out of their crates and have been trained since little on to love their crate. Dogs are creatures of habit. So if they are used to hanging out on the sofa, that is where they are going to be. To keep them off and break the habit, all I did was keep the sofa cushions turned up at an angle so they cannot sit on it. When somebody wants to sit on the sofa they just put the cushion down. They got used to their only sleeping place being their crate. After awhile, they never even tried to go on the sofa. This may not work for all dogs but worked for me. My dogs are not suffering. They love their crates and are free to go in or out of them. And they are always near us which seems to be all they care about.