How to Train a Hyper Dog

Video Transcript

"Okay, so when you're dealing with a hyper dog like this one, it can be more challenging to train them. As you can see, if I start saying her name...Pima!...Pima!...her tail starts wagging. She starts looking around for toys, etcetera. If I just go near a ball, here, and start walking, she'll immediately get excited. So you have to have some code words that tell the dog it might not be a time to get excited, and that could be "leave it". "Leave it and sit". And even though she is still interested by the ball and following the ball with her eyes, at least she's not acting quite as hyper. Now, with hyper dogs, when you grab their leash, they might even get excited because of that, because they know it could be time to go for a walk. And that would make it hard to leash them. In this case, she's pretty calm, maybe 'cause I told her to stay, but let's say she's excited....Come on, let's go. Let's go Pima. Let's go! She's grabbing her ball. Drop it. Sit. Sit. Wait. And giving the dog a few extra seconds to calm down, and then put the leash on, can be a great tool. When you're training a hyper dog, another good strategy is to let the dog know that there are times where it's okay to be excited and to hyper, so if I start kicking this ball around, she's going to get very excited. She's going to get the ball. She's going to bring it back...Come on!....Come on!....Come on! She's going to drop it, and then she's going to want me to kick it again, and if I do, she's going to go get it right away. And she's clearly getting very excited. What's important is to take control when it's time not to be excited....Drop it...Sit....Stay. And to use your voice to calm the dog down and show her that there's a time to be excited and there's a time to be more relaxed. As you can see, she's still very attentive to what's going on, but she is calming down."