So far, so good!
As I mentioned this was a new behavior for the dog, who is relatively young (18 mos).
My son is a single adult, who lives with a roommate in his own apartment about 40 miles away. After searching for several months without success, 2 weeks ago he took a job here and stays with us during work week. My son is a veteran; Mo is his ESA, and she stays with me while my son is at work. Within days, I became her other person.
With this being a new behavior, it took us a bit to figure out what was going on from Mo's perspective. My son has had Mo since she was 10 weeks old and had never seen her act like this. She knows better. Then we realized: until he began interviewing for this job, Mo had never seen people hugging. (When he came to see me, when it was time to go he'd put Mo in the car & come back to hug us goodbye.)
As soon as we put the pieces together, we taught Mo that no one was being threatened and she didn't need to protect my son or me.
Once Mo realized everyone was safe and we were exchanging affection, the jumping on/between us ended. (A 120lb German Shepherd leaning on the backs of our calves or striking us between the shoulder blades was unsat and needed to stop immediately.)
Then it was an "I love, too!" situation. Which is super cute, but still calls for good manners.
Bear in mind that she is also flirting with us re: commands being commands rather than negotiable requests. I'm not sure if it's due to the change in environment, introduction of new people, her stage of development, or some combination of those & other factors; however, none of those things change that commands are commands.
We want her to not react to people hugging until she's told to. For that reason, as soon as we stopped the jumping, we didn't introduce a hugging routine. Sometimes, she is allowed to give and receive her affection first. Other times, she has to sit and wait her turn.
So far, she is doing really well. She will still try to nose between us or rub against our legs, but
nothing like she was doing 2 weeks ago. Even though it's much better, we continue to work toward our end goal of "no response" until a command is given. When she interrupts, we use no, sit or down and if necessary press on her head or shoulders to reinforce the command.
It isn't perfect yet, but we're pleased with how well she responds to either the voice or touch command. If one of us puts a hand on her hips, she'll sit without the verbal command. If we put our hand on her shoulders, she'll move from sit to lie down without the verbal command.
So, yay!
