“My Dog jumps on my guests”
“My Dog is always hyper or excited”
“I am afraid my dog’s jumping can hurt kids”
“I want my dog to meet calmly with everyone”
“I don’t know why my dog is always hyper”
“He is always in a mood to play”
I hear concerns like these almost every day and people think that issue is in the dog but in reality, humans don’t know how to channelize the energy of the dog.
In every breed, you will find dogs with 4 types of energy.
- Low
- Medium
- High
- Hyper
The meaning of level of energy is the amount of mental stimulant a dog requires to feel fulfilled, if he doesn’t feel fulfilled then it will be very difficult for a dog to calm down.
Recently a family called me for their hyper dog who used to jump on everyone, pulls on the walk, and keeps on barking whenever the family is discussing something which was making any type of communication happen among family members very difficult and unpleasant.
When I reached their home and met with the dog I found out that the reason behind the excitement of the dog is the behavior of the humans with the dog.
Everyone in the family and in their building used to meet with a lot of excitement with the dog, so the dog learned only this way(excitement) of living life.
As soon as I started behaving calmly with the dog, the dog became calm, it felt like he was waiting for me the whole time to come and teach their humans the right way of raising a dog.
The most common mistake humans make while meeting their dog or any dog is they project a lot of excitement because they think excitement is happiness but excitement and happiness both are different emotions.
This family was also doing the same, whenever they come back home, they open the gate, take the name of the dog with a lot of excitement, so the dog comes running and starts to jump and humans give affection to the dog.
On a daily basis, the dog is learning excitement means affection, jumping means love, so he keeps on doing the same for his humans.
But, real happiness for a dog is when is he calm and submissive. Not when he is excited. In mother nature excitement is unstable energy, you will not see any zebra jumping in a forest.
I asked them to start nurturing calmness and ignoring excitement.
I also told them to meet the dog with calmness.
Within 2-3 days dog stopped pulling them, stopped jumping, stopped barking.
They were facing this issue for 2 years but if they knew how a dog’s mind works then they and their dog wouldn’t have to go through so much frustration.
That’s why learning about a dog’s mind is very important if you want to raise calm, confident, and loving dogs.