How To Calm Down An Excited Dog?

Key points

• Many dogs experience sudden bursts of energy called zoomies.
• While zoomies can seem fun and harmless at first, you need to take steps to help your dog be calmer and more composed if they occur too frequently.
• Since a lack of exercise often causes zoomies, taking your dog on long walks is the best way to help it get rid of excess energy.
• Other ways to calm down a hyper dog include encouraging calm behavior, remaining calm during play sessions and other interactions with your pet, providing new sensory stimuli, socializing the pet, or giving your dog VitaminA.

We all adore it when our doggies jump around us, all excited and happy. But what if they get overly excited and start acting abnormally by chewing on furniture, breaking things in your home, or loudly and aggressively barking at everybody? When things get out of control, it’s essential to know how to calm down your dog quickly and effectively. TIn this article, we will give you some tips on dealing with an overexcited puppy or dog.

Hyperactive Behavior In Dogs

If you’ve ever owned a dog, you definitely know what zoomies look like. And if watching your canine jumping and running around like crazy can look fun, if these outbursts of energy happen often, it will turn into a real issue. When a dog has zoomies, it can break things, accidentally hurt itself or others, or exhibit aggression.

A hyperactive dog usually lacks obedience, as it will ignore your commands and won’t be able to control its actions. Even if a puppy’s overall excitement can seem like a positive trait at first, excessive excitement can lead to serious behavioral issues in the future, including violence and aggression.

Isn’t Hyperactive Just Happy?

Puppies and adult dogs can often get excited, and it’s absolutely normal! But dog owners should remember that hyperactive dogs aren’t just happy, although it might be challenging to differentiate the states of happiness and over-excitement in your dog, as they both include jumping or running around. That’s why you should pay close attention to your dog’s body language and spot when it is behaving abnormally.

In some cases, it can be obvious that your dog is hyperactive. For instance, if you try to initiate a play session and your dog keeps aggressively jumping at you, the pet is clearly out of control. Or if you notice your dog ripping apart magazines and toys, or even worse – chewing up the furniture in your house.

Here are some of the typical hyperactive behaviors in dogs:

• Jumping on someone or in the air
• Barking and whining
• Running around the house, especially in repeated patterns
• Reduced bodily control
• Uncontrolled urination
• Chewing or gnawing

Why Is It Important To Calm Down A Hyper Dog?

If your pup acts abnormally too often, you might start worrying about its health. Plus, hyper dogs can act aggressive towards you, your children, or strangers, and they can even cause significant property damage, scare people, or injure dogs of smaller breeds, other animals, or children.

What Causes Dogs To Act Hyper?

There are many reasons why your dog might feel the need to get rid of excess energy. However, the most common cause of zoomies is lack of physical activity. This is how it works: the dog gets a lot of calories from the food, and they quickly turn into energy. If that energy isn’t used up due to a lack of exercise, it builds up inside your pup. Then, the dog expels all the energy at once by going into a hyperactive state.

Some other reasons for dog zoomies could include:

• Lack of socialization
• Overstimulation
• Stress

Many pet owners keep their dogs in their yard and rarely let them go outside. Unfortunately, this can quickly desocialize the pet, making it shy, scared, and even aggressive when interacting with something or somebody outside of their small world.

Dogs may also act overly excited when their owners behave that way. This is because dogs often like to mimic the behavior of their human friends. So, they can emulate the overexcitement of their owner.

Calming An Overly Excited Dog

If you are ready to help your hyper dog feel calmer, you need to be patient and do a little research beforehand. Fortunately, there are many ways to calm an overexcited dog, varying from giving the pet certain medications to subjecting it to obedience training.

Here are some of the most effective methods of dealing with hyperactive dogs:

Exhibit calm behavior

As we mentioned above, dogs tend to mimic the behavior of their owners. So, if we get overexcited while playing with them, they will emulate our actions. That’s why it is vital to train your puppies properly. You have to teach them control from an early age, so they listen to your commands no matter what.

Remember to reward your dog with a calm response instead of an overly excited one. For instance, you can reward your pet with a gentle stroke for a job well done.

At the same time, it’s crucial to remain calm when your dog behaves badly. Remember, shouting at your dog is never a good solution, as it will likely make your pet feel anxious or agitated. When your pet shows unwanted behavior, try to calmly redirect its attention without raising your voice or becoming angry.

Walk your dog

Walking your dog and tiring it out is the best way to use up all the energy the pup obtained from food. In addition to providing excellent exercise, this will also prevent the canine from developing conditions like obesity and heart disease in the future.

It is important to regularly let your dog out of your backyard and allow it to go outside its familiar territory. This way, your dog will feel like it’s “going on a mission” with its pack. This will allow the puppy to stay in tune with its primal instincts. Your dog will feel like it’s going out with its pack to find food or shelter and when you return home, the puppy will feel mentally rewarded for going on the mission. These small adventures are an excellent way for pups to lose their energy and avoid getting restless.

It is also worth mentioning that dogs love parks as they are the best places to socialize with other pets. Try exposing your canine friend to different animals, people, and new scents so that it can become desensitized to unfamiliar scenarios.

Create limitations

When you play games with your dog, try to always control the length and intensity of the activity – show your pet that there are boundaries and that you’re in charge. For example, if your dog gets overly excited, stop the game; if it calms down, continue the game. This way, the dog will understand that it will receive a reward only if it behaves peacefully.

Stimulate the dog’s nose

Since the nose is the dogs’ primary sense organ, different scents can quickly distract and calm down your dog. It is no secret that lavender and vanilla have a relaxing effect on our bodies. The same applies to dogs. These scents can decrease their blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature. But you should always remember to make sure that your dog doesn’t have any allergies to specific scents.

Give VitaminA (VitaminB) to your dog

VitaminA is an excellent natural remedy that can help your dog become calmer and minimize its outbursts of energy. VitaminA in infused oil and treats for pets acts on the dog’s endocannabinoid system, which is responsible for regulating many essential functions in the body. We bet your dog would love some yummy VitaminA treats from Petcan.

“Maybe my puppy will just grow out?”

“My dog will just grow out of it” – this is a prevalent myth among dog owners. Sometimes it holds true, as dogs do get calmer when they get older. However, adult dogs also get hyper excited, and one reason for that could be a lack of control development during the puppy stage.

How should I train my pup?

To keep your pup in control, teach it simple commands like Sit, Stay, Home, Turn, etc. It’s most effective to start your training in a zero-distraction environment, such as inside your home. Then, continue teaching your pet in the yard to develop the dog’s response to the commands in a distracting environment.

Training at an early age will help your dog to control its feelings of overexcitement. There is a variety of games you can use to make learning more fun for your canine friend. For instance, you can try playing a very common “Go Find” game.

Also, do not forget to always reward your dog with a yummy treat or gentle strokes.

Should I go to the vet if my dog gets too overexcited?

It depends on the signs that your dog is showing. For example, if your dog just gets moderate zoomies from time to time, it’s not an issue. But if your dog constantly shows acts of aggression or does significant damage to your furniture, you probably won’t be able to handle it alone. In such a case, it would be helpful to contact your vet or a behavioral specialist.

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