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Do you have an excited Australian Shepherd that you can’t seem to calm down? Don’t panic, you’ll find all the tips to do so here!
You have an Australian Shepherd Dog who is always excited, you can’t manage to calm him down and this has a great influence on his good integration within the family but also within society in general? Don’t panic, you will find here all the tips to calm down your Australian Shepherd Dog.
Understand why my Australian Shepherd Dog is excited
Before talking about problem solving and giving you all the tips to calm down your Australian Shepherd Dog, you must identify the cause of the problem.
In fact, if your Australian Shepherd Dog is too excited, you must first observe in what context he gets excited, what triggers this behavior (it can be an object, a person, an environment, a situation, etc.).
This allows you to know if your Australian Shepherd Dog is excited by a specific element, or on the contrary by a whole environment. This will be very useful to adapt your attitude when solving the problem.
You will have understood it, the “base” of the work is to understand why your dog gets excited in order to succeed in solving your problem in an efficient way. Because if you only put in place some rather inhibiting behavioral stop indications without trying to see further, you will only mask the underlying problem.
Tips to calm down an Australian Shepherd Dog
Spending your dog
This is certainly the first advice to give to a master who can’t calm down his overly excited Australian Shepherd.
Indeed, you must ask yourself if your dog is sufficiently walked and spent on a daily basis. This is true for all dogs, but even more so for an Australian Shepherd Dog, since he is a dog originally selected for work: he therefore needs to spend twice as much energy.
Be aware that boredom and inactivity can trigger many behavioral problems, especially in an Australian Shepherd Dog. This can result in destruction, excessive barking, inability to calm down, etc. In the majority of cases, a dog that fails to calm down is a dog that does not get enough activity.
Therefore, to spend your Australian Shepherd Dog properly, you must:
· Walk him for at least 1 hour a day,
· teach him tricks at home,
· give him some toys to occupy him,
· test it in games of intelligence and reflection,
· play with him as regularly as possible,
· introduce him to other dogs,
· engage in regular physical activity with him/her (canicross, agility, treibball, etc.).
Have a consistent attitude
To get your dog to calm down when you ask him to, you need to be consistent in your attitude.
That is to say that you must already be master of you before you are master of your dog. If you have a very excited dog, don’t be excited yourself, adopt a very calm attitude. Dogs are emotional sponges, they rely heavily on our own energies, so balance interactions by adopting a calm, serene and confident attitude so that your dog “imitates” you in some way.
On the other hand, you must also have a constant attitude because if you don’t always adopt the same attitude, your dog will continue to adopt his behavior to get what he wants to get excited, bark, jump on you etc.
If some days you allow your dog to behave in a way that you then forbid, it is not consistent and you become an unreliable reference for your dog. And, if you are not consistent in your attitude and assiduous in the process of education or rehabilitation of your dog, your work will be much longer and tedious.
Don’t forget that Australian Shepherds are very intelligent dogs, they quickly understand what is expected of them but can also very quickly take advantage of their masters’ weaknesses… Be aware of this to avoid your doggie becoming more of a constraint than a real companion.
Know it, you are responsible for your dog’s behavior but above all for the solution that you will bring to rebalance his attitude!
Be at the initiative of the contacts
In the same vein as the previous advice, you must make your dog understand that just because he wants attention doesn’t mean he will get it.
Indeed, dogs that fail to calm down are often dogs that constantly demand their master’s attention. Well, to help your Australian Shepherd Dog to regain mental balance, don’t respond to his requests for attention.
The goal, to be at the initiative of the contacts with his dog, is to ignore him as soon as he asks for attention.
And to ignore his dog, what is that? It’s not looking at him, not touching him, not talking to him. In other words: turn your back on him or go to another room!
If when your dog gets very excited and asks for your attention and you look at him, touch him or talk to him: you teach him that begging works! And even if you talk to him to “scold” him (which is clearly not recommended, remember, you must have a calm and serene attitude), your dog will simply understand that you are paying attention to him, whatever the nature of the interaction.
On the other hand, once your dog stops asking for attention and moves on to something else, you can reward your dog for this behaviour. Here, the best reward will be an interaction with you (a cuddle, a play session, etc.).
To finish on this point, to learn how to calm down your Australian Shepherd, he must understand that giving up is winning: to calm down is to win!
Strengthen the educational bases
Sometimes ignoring a dog can be very complicated. If your Australian Shepherd Dog jumps on you and you ignore him, turn his back and he continues to jump on your back, bark and even bite you: you must of course react!
The educational bases are very important to allow you to frame your dog and channel his energy (by spending it daily, of course).
To allow your dog to calm down when he is excited, he must have acquired simple indications beforehand, without surrounding stimulation, in a calm and serene place for him such as “in the basket” or “you leave” for example. Don’t hesitate to read our articles especially dedicated to these subjects to teach your dog to give up by means of simple and quick to set up indications.
The “do not move” indication is also very useful to help your dog return to a stable emotional state. Don’t hesitate to teach him through the game to kill two birds with one stone: the “don’t move” with the notion of reward once calmed down (I give up, I win).
Play to calm down
To calm down your Australian Shepherd Dog, here is an “ON/OFF” game to be put in place as often as possible to teach your dog to calm down while having fun.
In other words, we promote a rise in excitement (more or less intense depending on your dog’s character) in a controlled manner and then teach him to come down immediately. If your Australian Shepherd Dog has great difficulty in calming down, the emphasis will be more on the “descent” and not on the rise in excitement.
Step 1: Have a toy such as a knotted rope toy that is long and strong enough to hold in your hand while your dog bites it.
Step 2: Encourage your dog to catch the toy, let him catch it while holding it in his hand and make movements as close to the ground as possible from left to right. Have a play attitude that your dog understands: high-pitched voice, bent posture, etc.
Step 3: Before your dog gets too excited and therefore unmanageable, stand up straight and say “stop” firmly. Be as still as possible and do not pull on the toy, keep it in your hand: it is up to your dog to let go, not you to take it out of his mouth.
Step 4: If your dog fails to let go of the toy, change your attitude, you may not be firm enough. You can also barter with a treat if you need to.
Step 5: When he lets go of the toy, wait for him to settle down and calm down. You can even ask him to sit or lie down. Wait a few seconds and repeat step 2.
Finally, always take the initiative at the beginning and end of this play session and do not leave the toy with your dog, put it away until the next session. At the end of the game clearly say “it’s over” and ignore your dog. Here you can playfully teach your dog to calm down immediately when you ask him to do so.