Feel like your arms are about to be pulled off every time you take your dog for a walk? Or constantly apologising to visitors when your dog leaps up on them when they arrive? Or perhaps you’d love it if your dog could CHILL OUT once in a while. One of the most common issues people experience with their dogs is hyperactivity, but fear not - there is so much you can do to help encourage your dog to be more calm and relaxed, without crushing their beautiful happy spirit.

Here are my top five tips…

1. Exercise, stimulation and play

The first thing to do is make sure your dog is getting an appropriate level of exercise, stimulation and play for their breed and age. A dog that’s not getting enough will be hard to settle, hard to train and generally pent up. The boredom may manifest as destructive behaviour, anxiety, hyperactivity or any number of other undesirable behaviours. A dog needs physical exercise, mental stimulation and free play time - sometimes these activities cross over, for example a doggy play date is both play time and physical exercise, while a ‘sniffari’ (walk while allowing your dog to sniff and explore freely) is both mental stimulation and physical exercise, and a food puzzle is both mental stimulation and play! Short training sessions in particular are an excellent way to exercise your dog’s brain and tire them out beautifully, and retrieve games stimulate your dog’s natural prey drive but redirects it into a healthy, controllable, physically-fulfilling activity.

Giving our dog play and stimulation is essential if we expect our dog to be able to be calm at other times. If you’re unsure about how much your dog should be getting, do a bit of research online about an appropriate level for your dog’s breed and age.

2. Calm YOURSELF

That’s right, to calm your dog you have to first calm yourself. Dogs feed off our energy and take their cues from us, their postural communication skills and olfactory acuity are much better than ours, and they are reading more than can be obviously seen on the surface - including our body language and pheromones. So if you’re wanting a calmer disposition for your dog, take a deep breath and try to exude calm confidence yourself. Fake it ’til you make it if you have to!

3. Bond gaze

This is a very simple little exercise to practise with your dog to help them bond with you. When your dog is tightly bonded to you, they respect you, listen to you, look to you for direction and are less likely to jump and scramble all over you or pull on the lead etc. When your dog gazes into your eyes, it activates oxytocin and dopamine which calms them down and relaxes them.

To teach your dog the bond gaze, use a clicker and high value food rewards. If you don't have a clicker, say ‘yes’ in a positive tone of voice in place of a click. Ask your dog to Sit, click and reward. If your dog looks up at you naturally, click and reward. To encourage your dog to look up to you, let them sniff a high value treat in your hand then hold it in front of your eyes. When they look up at the treat (and therefore you), immediately click then give the food reward. You can use their name to get their attention and use a Watch command if needed. Dogs have evolved to have a natural predisposition to seek out human eyes, so you’ll likely find your dog responds to this quite easily!

Initially, click and reward the INSTANT your dog looks up at you, even if only for a second, then

slowly and gradually start to draw out the amount of time you wait before you click and reward, so that they’re gazing at you for a good few seconds before they get the reward. Then use your hand up at your eyes with no food, but still click and reward, then slowly fade using your hand at all and just use the Watch command.

A bond gaze is incredibly calming for your dog, and if you practise enough it will become the go-to way your dog asks you for attention or anything else they want. They will just sit and look intently up into your eyes.

4. Zen Down

This is the most calming command, an absolute essential for ANY dog! It is so powerful, you can’t underestimate it. This curled Zen Down position relaxes the dorsal muscles and activates the vagus nerve within the enteric nervous system, which induces a state of calm in your dog.

It’s known as ‘embodied cognition ’in humans, where your body posture communicates your state to the brain, which in turn affects your attitude and feelings. This means you basically change the chemistry in your dog’s brain and their emotions with their body posture! You will notice this change by a calming and relaxing in their body tone.

To teach it:

  • Start with your dog in a standard Down position

  • With a food lure in your hand, work your hand from in front of your dog’s nose to their side so that as your dog’s nose follows the lure, their head curls over their front legs and they flip over slightly onto their hip

  • Click and reward (or say ‘yes’ and reward) as soon as your dog rolls onto their hip, dropping the food reward between your dog’s front legs to encourage them to remain down and relaxed

  • Continue to click and reward your dog while they remain in Zen Down to encourage them to remain in this calming position

  • You can also smear bits of food onto the ground so it takes longer for your dog to eat the treat and therefore they maintain the Zen Down position for longer

  • If your dog doesn’t seem to get it, use a finger to gently push the lower part of your dog’s side to encourage their back legs to flip over until they’re lying semi sideways (lower legs are laying on their side, but upper legs may still be lying straight). Take care as some dogs are touch sensitive and push back - don’t force them. Touching can inhibit training so only do this if you need to

  • Use Zen Down whenever you need your dog to settle down, refocus, take in new situations or get nice and calm for some training - it’s like magic!

5. Nothing in life is free If you want to teach your hyperactive dog some better manners, always ask them to do something small before they get what they want (whether that be food, your attention, freedom, off-lead time, play, affection etc). We call this principle nothing in life is free - you insist on a little bit of work before dishing out the goods. For example, ask for a Sit or Down before you pat them, ask them to Wait before eating their meals or going out the door, ask your dog to Sit before you take them off lead etc. When you ask your dog to do something and they do it, activity is created in the prefrontal cortex (the “thinking” brain) which immediately dampens anxiety, fear or excitability in the emotional centres of the brain leading to calmer behaviour. This is a very important technique to understand!

If you only reward your dog when they are doing desired behaviours or commands, you will quickly quash inappropriate overexcited behaviours and find that your dog is generally much calmer.

Good luck If you practise all of these techniques with your dog, I guarantee you’ll notice a big change and your dog will seem much calmer and more responsive.

Save on your dog training!

If you have a seriously overexcitable dog, Mark Vette’s Virtual Training Schools can help - and we can now offer you discounted access. With options for new pups, distractible teenagers and older dogs with behavioural issues, Mark will guide you through your training with an easy-to-follow video course and Live Coaching Sessions for personalised help. Use code ADVANCE15 at check-out to get 15% for the duration of your membership. Learn more at www.dogzen.com

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