Why is my dog so excitable?

Question

My female jack russell is 15 months old and i understand the jack russells temperament but she gets so excitable and i have no idea why.
We have 2 other different breeds of dogs who are calm, when my jrt is on her own with just me and my mum shes fine, calm and you couldnt wish for a better behaved dog but soon as any other family member or friend comes round she goes mad! its not the first time shes seen them, they come round atleast twice a week, she jumps up, bites a little but not to cause pain and doesnt stop barking. Shes not aggressive atall, we keep her on her harness to try and train her to stop but it hasnt worked, we use a different tone in our voice but that again doesnt work. Shes on a good expensive food which supposedly stops dogs being so excitable. Weve also had her booked in to be spade in a few months time as shes just had her second season. Theres actually no training classes near where we live so thats sadly not an option She wasnt like this when she was a young pup but only started doing it at around 8/9 months of age.
Any advise given will be great, thanks

Answer 1

I know how you feel - my cocker spaniel is CRAZY! he will go for a long walk, sleep for 10 minutes and then want to be played with!

he also goes mad when he sees someone(familiar or stranger)

I think its just his personality because we did train him a bit

:)

Answer 2

its not really a behavior problem, thats just the type of dog she is. Not all dogs are the same. Even if that dog is a certain breed, there is no guarantee that it will have the same temperament as all the other breeds. If you want your dog to stop greeting guests and acting happy when guests come, just practice with her. Have you taught her any tricks yet? Have a friend knock on your door and come in, put your dog on a leash and stand by the door. once they come in, firmly tell her to sit. If she does, give her a treat, if she doesnt, put your hand on her lower back and push down gently until she is in a sitting position. if she stays that way, give her a treat, if she doesnt, keep making her sit until she stays sitting. have her leash short so she cant jump up and go after them as they walk in, if she gets up, just make her sit again. Once the person is out of view, praise her and give her a treat. Repeat this about once a day. Eventually she will no longer need the leash and do it automatically.

Answer 3

If you want to correct this you will have to find classes and travel (like alot of us have to do) to get to them.. I travel 2 hours one way for training and classes.... my dog is worth it.. Once you have solved the problems, you will still know HOW TO TRAIN stuff and get results. so it is win /win situation. Another thing is if the dog is correctly exercised (like 2 hours a day of aerobic stuff) she will be much calmer and able to LEARN.. when a dog has pent up energy and nowhere to get rid of it, they tend to have trouble focusing enough to learn what you are trying to teach.... or they tend to be reactive ... Look for reactive dog books on amazon. A good starting training book is Click to Calm by Emma Parsons. another good book on training is Control Unleashed by Leslie McDevitt. for a DVD on the basics of training , get The 4 hr DVD Called ' the Power of Training dogs with food' with Michael Ellis you can get it at leerburg (.com) It is expensive but it is the only one you will need to have a dog learn anything you want.... it is incredible. About the site Leerburg has, they have 10,000 pages of free information on all sorts of dog problems and great stuff in a question and answer section also ... they sell great products.. good luck