Is your dog really happy – or is he over excited?
When excitement does not equal happiness, but unbalanced, unhealthy behaviour…
Sometimes when I meet dogs, the guardian will justify the over excited yapping and barking, the squeaking and leaping about as their dog being excited and happy to meet me. What I often see however, is an unhealthy and unbalanced form of excitement, one that on closer examination is not doing the dog any favours and which is often linked with other behaviours that the guardian has mentioned, yet donʼt make the connection.
Often these dog may show some kind of separation distress (a huge subject in itself and not always what we think it is!) it might be a dog that is fearful of shots, thunder or fireworks, it might bark incessantly and excitedly before walks or when getting in the car to go somewhere. It may be a dog that barks or squeaks if a human leaves the room and it may be the kind of dog that jumps up and leaps at strangers. These behaviours, while normal if a dog can calm down pretty quickly after displaying them, are generally over-excited unhealthy ones if we see them exhibited in a frantic way and where the dog canʼt easily be calmed. They are often married with more than one of the other behaviours listed above and are also often linked to lacking frustration tolerance including pulling on the lead, chasing things, over enthusiastic greeting of other dogs, inability to read other dog body language when they say “stop”, ball obsession, wave chasing and many others.
If these dogs are asked to be calm, instead of lying quietly they will either find it hard to stay still and keep getting up or pacing about, or if they do lay down, they may shake fitfully. If corrected they may yawn, adding in that kind of stressful squeak that dogs do when they are releasing tension.
Over excitement/over stimulation/hyper vigilance in dogs is an unhealthy state of mind and it creates a whole host of behavioural problems. In most cases, the over-excitement comes first and because that energy is never allowed to come down, it starts to manifest as problems such as excessive barking, pulling on the lead, nipping and biting, jumping on people, separation/over attachment type issues (but what is often called separation anxiety is generally more complex and misunderstood) and even aggressive reactions toward other dogs and so on. These dogs are in a high state of arousal. These dogs may also exhibit signs such as over panting, spinning and pacing or be ball obsessive or over-focused on something. Rather than working on the behaviours themselves we need to change the emotional state associated with those behaviours. Do this and the behaviours automatically start to change.
An example of how these things can get started is that in the beginning a dog struggled, often as a puppy, with some form of frustration intolerance – the “I want it and I want it now” type attitude. Walk me now, play with me now, give me that toy now, throw this ball now, give me attention now – nudge, nudge, paw, paw, nudge etc. This lack of frustration tolerance tends to be worse in breeds that are known for higher energy and that are higher up on the impulsivity scale – collies, spaniels and terrier types are some of the most common. It takes a lot of work to turn impulsive behaviours and frustration intolerance into some form of self control. True self control can only truly be considered in place once a dog will choose, without command and without control (eg no lead) to ignore something that is highly tempting and that he might normally chase or be stimulated by. It may not even be true self control unless, under those same circumstances, a human is not present! Many dogs (probably most) will never achieve this and that should not be surprising nor unexpected.
Ball or frisbee obsessed dogs that could play fetch all day, every day are often suffering from an unhealthy form of excitement – they are NOT having fun and just enjoying it as guardians often claim. Many are driven by their genetic instincts to keep chasing or fetching – we bred that into them as we needed dogs to be a bit obsessed about the jobs we needed them to do. Now those breeds are mostly pets but that drive is still there and this is what causes us (and our dogs) the problems. Most of us have seen these dogs, yapping and barking for the ball to be thrown, lunging and thrusting on the lead, often barking at the same time in excitement to go and play with other dogs or lunging and barking at waves on the beach. Continuing this kind of play just over stimulates the dog and isnʼt doing him any good, in fact this is no longer play in the true sense of the word – the stress response system is being triggered in a way that over time, will be detrimental to the health and well being of the dog.
Dogs often spend far too long in an impoverished environment, some are left many hours during the day and are then 8-10 hours alone again over night. When they get taken out to perform an over stimulating activity or go into an over stimulating environment, it blows their minds. If this is combined with the risk taking behaviours of an adolescent we start to see dogs lose their recall, bully other dogs and become the types everyone wants to avoid. Over stimulation so easily leads to arousal which can tip into reactivity and before we know it we have a dog fight on our hands.
The following is a very useful article about ditching the ball thrower and why it can create more problems than it solves:
Agility is another activity where over stimulated dogs are often seen. Although I love agility and think it is a great activity for guardians to do with their dogs (if the dog loves it too and not all do – but that’s a conversation for another time) I have actually come across a number that have been over stimulated by it
Sometimes fearful dogs are directed to agility classes to help them gain confidence, but what can happen (and I have come across it on a number of occasions) is that the energy actually feeds the dog with nervous energy rather than give it confidence. Calm builds confidence, excitement does not. What then happens is that rather than focus on the agility course, the dog becomes completely scattered, barks too much, it may even nip or redirect on the handler and is in a highly unbalanced state. The sad thing is that instead of the trainer then telling the guardian this is what is happening and offering to help them, they just continue to encourage them – sadly many of the trainers themselves donʼt even recognise the behavioural problem that is being created.
It is often the case that these types of behaviours were not addressed early on and the guardian wasnʼt helped to understand the importance of getting their dog calm before they ran the course or before they even entered the arena. If the dog has no focus before the class, they have no hope of gaining focus once the excitement begins. I have been in agility classes where fights have broken out because the trainers and guardians are focusing on the activity and the tasks but not addressing any issues arising. In fact, they donʼt even notice those issues. It should not be surprising that these things happen when taking part in a sport that requires a high level of energy and activity. The dogs are often operating under extremely exciting conditions and this will never help a more neurotic, high energy or over excited dog. Other things can create similar problems such as over stimulating play with other dogs, getting into hunting/tracking/sniffing mode and running around aimlessly off lead. The only way to help the dog is to actually limit this kind of play or activity and instead, encourage and reward calm while providing exercises that use brain work to tire and the nose to lower heart rate.
When dealing with behavioural issues teaching calm is vital. It is probably the most neglected area of dog training and puppy classes. Us humans can spend many hours not interacting with our dogs and we have other things we do in our lives – take children to school, attend activities with them, go to the gym, go out to work, cook dinner, go to the movies, go shopping – so we owe it to our dogs to learn that sometimes life is boring! Our pet dogs could take a leaf out of the training book of a service dog.
Learning calm body postures recalls positive memories. It is for this reason that teaching patience and frustration tolerance is so important for generating new neural pathways to new behaviours. Exercises where all 4 limbs are used in a thinking way are highly effective for this – so something like Dog Parkour is a perfect activity to support behavioural changes. It can be done by any age of dog and in any location. It is an ideal activity to build into your walks and helps dogs slow down and perform tasks in a thinking way. Learning Dr Karen Overall’s deep breath technique and other focus and calming exercises also help and these can be added to Parkour type tasks.
If we don’t address these over stimulated behaviours, as this type of high level of stress is bad stress it will affect the dog’s long term health. Although greatly simplified, the stress hormones released do not instantly dissipate and can remain in the bloodstream for many hours – maybe even 72 hours to a week. Keep this up over a period of time and the dog will constantly be in a state of stress. This mens that stress hormones remain in the dogʼs bloodstream constantly and over excitement or arousal becomes normal for the dog. Eventually, left unchecked, this can lead to health issues and poor gut health (dysbiosis) that can lead to even more behavioural issues arising.
For these dogs they should have focused on lead time, not just pulling along on a harness or sniffing at every scent, urine marking and criss crossing in front of the person walking them. These things can be allowed on a “sniff walk” where the dog is given a longer lead and allowed to explore in his own way after being given release, or when off lead. The period where a dog is doing his own thing should initially be kept to a minimum until the dog has learnt how to be calm and combined with interactive exercises and engagement with the guardian – who should be checking in to see if the brain is still with them or if it has left the building and disappeared over the horizon. More stimulation can then be built up over time when the dog is ready, but in the beginning, the longer the dog is out doing his own thing, the more his brain can become scattered and lose direction, building the excitement and winding the dog up like a spring.
Itʼs important to reward calm and not give attention or recognition to excitement. We must also be careful not act like the excited behaviour is funny or acceptable. Humans (as apes) often flap their hands about and many dogs see this as a kind of dying, wriggling animal (!) and it winds them up – we have to become very aware of out own body language and when I work with people, this is something of which I am very aware and need to help them adjust regularly. Many guardians I meet have been misinformed by being told to use extinction in these cases (ignoring the dog) to change the behaviours, when a dog is in an excited state, this will never work because the behaviour is self-rewarding ie, the behaviour itself is rewarding. Basically the dog is getting higher and higher on adrenaline. The dog actually needs some support to help him calm and this may mean physically restraining him in a calm but confident and supportive way, perhaps using the lead more. I want to stress here, this is NOT about an alpha roll or dominance tactics! The dog may be sitting or in a down and practicing relax on the mat and deep breath techniques can be taught to help this.
With some dogs we can support and add calm, a bit like holding a hysterical child until it lets go of tension. As the body relaxes, we are able to release the feel and allow our hands to “hover” over the dog and only hold or make contact again if the dog tries to get up too soon or leap up without having had the muscles relax. It is easy to tell if the dog is still holding tension as often the head will spring round, the body shakes fitfully, the legs canʼt lie on the ground and the eyes are moving or glancing about. When a dog lets go of the tension he goes limp and is almost dozing off. At this point we can even gently smooth him to show that this is what we want – but we have to be very careful not to add any exciting energy into this and touch is not suitable for all dogs.
To help keep a dog calm and to train in calm, it requires practice and ideally problem solving exercises used alongside clear boundaries. These things add in mental and emotional exercise for the dog and can be just as tiring and draining as physical work. Over excited dogs often need more mental and emotional work, as itʼs not always an under exercised dog that is over excited, in fact it is often the opposite.
Things like making sure a dog is calm and quiet before the lead goes on or is taken off, before he gets in or out of a car and making sure that any noise or excitement is not rewarded will all add to a dogʼs understanding that only calm is rewarded and that calm is what we want. It is important to remember that itʼs not just about quiet, itʼs about quiet and calm. We need to give focused exercise on lead and not allow too much high energy time. In games with other dogs, it is important to supervise, recall the excitable dog frequently so that things don’t escalate and to help them calm before the reward is to play again. We do not want to keep winding the spring until he tips over the edge. High energy, excitable play is the type that can quickly lead to a fight. Avoiding exciting environments or activities is not the answer, practicing calm within them is – but only once foundations and coping techniques are in place first and this means practicing them so that they are well honed in a calm, easy environment first – often the home, even if you think that your dog is 100% OK at home. It is important to establish a base line from which we can measure progress, so home is the place to do this. Trying to teach a dog calm and focus in the environment where the issues arise is nonsensical. That would be like you having your first driving lesson on the M25 at 5pm on a Friday at 70mph!
It is not simply a case that a dog that is over excited is under exercised. In some cases this is true and giving a dog the right amount of exercise will bring about changes, but just as often, over excited dogs do NOT need more exercise to help drain their energy, in fact their problem is often something else all together. They actually need to learn to come down in energy, have more calm and have more laying around and doing nothing times in their life. They need to problem solve and learn to choose calm. They need help to feel better when they are calm so that this is the emotional state they want to reproduce for themselves.
If we change the emotional state – we start to see the behaviour itself change.
It takes time and effort but is worth it in the end – and it could help prolong your dogʼs life!
Tamasine Smith – Leadchanges (Dog behaviour modification)