Is your puppy full of energy and loves to jump up on you, tear at clothing, or chew on anyone or anything they can reach? It’s always helpful to teach your puppy calm behavior and appropriate ways to expend their energy. In this blog, we will help teach you how to calm down a hyper puppy through exercises and obedience commands. Let’s start by going over body handling exercises.
Body handling exercises
Body handling exercises help teach your puppy to be comfortable with people touching their paws, prepare them for vet and grooming appointments, and help prevent touch-sensitivity behaviors from developing. You should practice body handling exercises at least a few times a week.
This is easier said than done with a hyper puppy, but to start, you should take some treats or kibble (you can feed them their entire meal). Then gently start manipulating parts of their body, such as touching, squeezing, and moving their body, including their paws, ears, collar, tail, and stomach, while offering them food.
Body handling exercises teach your dog that being handled is a pleasant experience by pairing it with a positive experience (treats and kibble). This will help your puppy stay calm when held, which will help prevent them from squirming, biting, chewing, or scratching at you to escape. For a visual guide to body-handling exercises, check out our TikTok video with our co-founder and Certified Dog Behavior Consultant, Sean Savage.
Physical Exercise
Physical exercise, like taking your dog for a walk or to the dog park, will help a hyper puppy calm down. There are many great dog parks in Dallas to explore, with some of our favorites being North Bark and White Rock Lake Park. There are also many great hiking trails in Dallas, including Cedar Ridge Nature Preserve and Spring Creek Forest Preserve. For more information, you should check out our blog on how dog friendly Dallas is.
However, you shouldn’t have to rely on exercise alone to have a well-behaved puppy. Especially during the hot summer months, when you may only be able to take out your puppy during the mornings and evenings.
Toys
Dog toys can help keep your puppy engaged and focused. Toys that you should avoid include:
- Stuffed animals
- Raw hide
- Rope toys
These toys can resemble something in your house. You don’t want to accidentally encourage your puppy to chew up your pillows if they have a similar texture to a stuffed animal. A rope toy can have a texture similar to the carpet’s fringes. This can be confusing for a puppy and be dangerous if they ingest them. Rawhides can have a similar texture to belts and purses, and can be dangerous if your puppy swallows a small piece of rawhide, which can cause a blockage.
Toys that we recommend include:
- Benebone Wishbone: A bacon-flavored nylon chew toy.
- Kong Tire: You can put treats or food inside the tire’s inner wall.
- Kong: You can fill this with kibble and peanut butter to help keep them busy.
- Chew King Fetch Ball: These balls are very durable and will last much longer than a tennis ball.
- Indestructible Ring Ball: This rubber chew toy is specifically designed for large breed aggressive chewers such as Malinois and Pittbulls.
- Nylabone Dental Chew: Its ridge and nub shapes helps prevent any plaque and tartar buildup.
- Nylabone Textured Ring: These chew toys come in flavors such as chicken and beef.
- Nylabone Chew Bone: This Nylon chew toy helps clean your dog’s teeth.
Now that we have discussed some great toys for your puppy, let’s go over obedience training to help calm down a hyper puppy.
Obedience training
Obedience training helps your puppy reliably listen around distractions, such as guests coming to the house, or wanting to chase and play with other dogs or cats in the home. This will help your hyper puppy to calm down when overwhelmed by stimuli. Obedience commands that are useful for a puppy include sit, down, stay, heel, and come.
It’s important that you teach your puppy around distractions to help your puppy reliably listen to your commands in any situation. It’s not very helpful if your puppy only listens to you when no one else is around, after all. You should make sure you teach your puppy obedience commands in situations including when they are ten feet from distractions or fifty feet away, inside or outside the house, on grass and concrete. You may feel like these are similar situations, but for your puppy, it can feel like a very different situation.
Just remember that, like when doing body exercises, you should bring some yummy dog treats for your puppy to keep their attention and make the experience fun.
We are here to help
Would you like help teaching your dog high level obedience commands and help keep them calm? You can also contact our Pet Behavior Team for a free consultation, where we can chat with you and provide a personalized recommendation that meets your needs. We recommend you check out our puppy training blog or our TikTok channel.
Beyond the Dog Dallas offers personalized one-on-one training sessions, including training at your home and neighborhood, board-and-train programs, and virtual training programs.
We use scientifically proven training methods, backed by over 20 years of hands-on experience. Beyond the Dog Dallas is led by our co-founders, Dr. Kristyn Echterling-Savage, a Certified Applied Animal Behaviorist (CAAB) and Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), and Sean Savage, a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) and Certified Professional Dog Trainer-Knowledge Assessed (CPDT-KA).
