Hyper Dog

When your hyper dog starts acting crazy, don’t lose your cool. How can you control your dog if you can’t control yourself?

“Owning a dog is a lesson in self-control.”
Your Dog Trainer Andrew Ledford 714-827-4058

Just as with many other behaviors, the intensity of hyper and crazy behavior can be regulated. It can be increased or decreased. I discourage people from unintentionally reinforcing overactive behavior. Reinforcement in this situation could be simply attending to the dog. If getting your attention is rewarding, then ignoring the dog should take away one form of reinforcement. Remember ignoring your dog means no looking, talking or touching.

While ignoring the dog is better than rewarding hyper behavior, there are more effective and proactive solutions.

Active extreme behavior and punishment

When active extreme behavior (Hyper behavior) is a result of stress or social pressure I think of it as a type of reactivity. It’s not the type of barking, growling, lunging reactively we used to call aggression. But it is a more passive type of reactivity. The dog is reacting with elevated levels of arousal. Often dogs will engage in behavior meant to initiate, increase, or maintain some kind of prosocial bonding or cooperation.

Some people try to punish their dogs during periods of hyperactive behavior. The problem with punishment is it can lead to reinforcing an avoidance response. Punishment can also get an appeasement play solicitation response from the dog, which will actually make the dog respond more actively. The increased activity is caused by putting the dog under more social pressure. When placed under social stress the dog will try to solicit play to break the tension caused by the human's reactivity (aggression.) Active behavior is self-reinforcing when your dog is in a state of stress, especially when combined with a heightened level of arousal.

A better option is to calmly touch the dog. When doing this you want to convey calmness through your touch. When combined with spatial relationship training and specific touching drill this is more effective than punishing the dog for active behavior. You will eventually want to get command control at times when the dog may be triggered into active behavior. When you know the triggers you can also start working at decreasing the triggers' effect on the dog.

Doodles are known for their active behavior. below are two pictures below are of me working with and getting control of some active extreme behavior relying primarily on touch.

With the proper preparation (both for yourself and your dog), times of extreme activity can be great training opportunities. Preparation for you begins with having the proper mindset. The next step is to have any training equipment you might need ready and in place.

It is always advisable to have equipment ready to deal with any problems and emergencies that may arise. I would recommend that you should at least have a slip lead and food rewards for training at this time. It may also be a good idea to have a retrieve toy that can double as a chew toy.

English Bulldogs Can Sometimes Be Quite The Hyper Dog With Short Burst of Extreme Energy. I prefer using positive reinforcement for working through hyperactive behavior problems. Especially when working with puppies. This will require having a rather high value food reward handy during times of active extreme behavior. If you believe only in force training, you will need a training collar and probably a light line and training tab.

For the first part of this series go to Hyperactive Puppy

714-827-4058
Andrew Ledford