Ask any of the dog trainers at a puppy school what puppy behavioural problems they get asked most for help with, over excitement is going to be one of the top answers.
By the fact they are young, inquisitive, and keen to explore everything, puppies will be excitable anyway.
However, when they become over-excited and this occurs far too often throughout the day, the puppy’s owner needs to act.
The question is how can they teach their puppy to not get too excitable, and the answer to that question will differ depending on who you speak to.
So, what we are going to do here is to give you our version, but it comes from speaking to many dog behaviour experts, and the trainers in puppy schools.
We have condensed them down into seven helpful ways that can contribute to calming an excitable puppy.
Start The Way You Mean To Go On
What we are saying here is the sooner you start teaching your puppy that constant over-excitement is not the way to behave, the better.
Trying to resolve this when the puppy is 6 months old or even later, will make it much harder to achieve as the puppy’s excitable behaviours will be ingrained.
Encourage Your Family To Take A Consistent Approach
If three members of your family follow the same methods when trying to calm your puppy but the fourth jumps around and shrieks with excitement when the puppy greets them, the puppy will be confused.
It is essential everyone trains the puppy consistently to make progress toward a calm puppy.
Give Them Plenty Of Exercise
Excitement is primarily a manifestation of the energy that a puppy has and as it jumps and runs around in an excited state, it is burning off some of this excess energy.
To reduce how much excess energy your puppy has, ensure they are taken for plenty of walks and given lots of opportunities to exercise.
Keep Them Mentally Stimulated
Keeping a puppy’s mind occupied means it cannot think about becoming excitable.
Ways to achieve this include giving short training lessons, playing games with them, and even having them sit whilst you stroke their fur, which will keep their mind occupied and in a relaxed state.
Have A ‘Calmness’ Trigger Word
It still amazes many people how a dog can hear a word like “sit” and then do exactly that.
We doubt they truly understand language, but more the tone and phonics of what is being said.
We recommend that as well as the usual “sit”, “stay” and “come here” commands, you teach your puppy from an early age a trigger word such as “calm” that tells them to relax and settle down.
Do Not Punish Excitement But Instead Reward Calmness
Punishing any dog, be it a puppy or an adult, is counterproductive.
We always prefer rewards so that when a puppy stops being excited and calms down it is rewarded with something as simple as praise or the occasional treat, which will most definitely reinforce that good behaviour.
Enrol Them In Puppy School
It is often said that children only truly learn to behave socially when they are with other children.
It stands true for puppies also, who, when they get to puppy school and are associating with other dogs, are taught how to behave, including staying calm.
This is achieved not just due to the puppy trainers training them, but also by them copying behaviours shown by other pups who remain calm.