# Highly excitable



## Khan (Jul 19, 2011)

Before I start, Whisper gets - on average - three hours of on/off leash excercise a day, and gets out on a walk twice a day every day. Occasionally it's less, depending on what's going on but I don't make a habit of it, and sometimes it's more, if I've got the time. We'll usually go on leash around the streets and stop off at an off leash park on the way back so she can have a run and a play if she's been good. We play fetch in the yard too.

Even with excercise she's really excitable. Not just perking up and interested, more like out of her mind crazy. Sometimes, it's controllable - you can see her mind ticking over, grab her, and force her to calm down - usually just making her sit down til she's relaxing again but other's its not. She mistook a dog being walked up the street for my parent's dog the other day and she absolutely lost it, shoved past me as I was opening the gate, charged across a busy main road and started leaping, jumping, barking - essentially trying to rough house with him but of course that does not exactly look like friendly behaviour to a stranger trying to walk their dog.

She barks at other dogs going up the road past our fence. Excited barking, not aggressive, racing up and down the fence. And I can't stop her. If I go tell her off or to grab her collar she thinks it's a game and races to the other end of the fence, and she doesn't respond to any sort of commands once she's in that overexcited mindset. 

I am doing my best to enforce calm behaviours on her and for now she can't really come off her leash. Forcing her to take time out is working good, as is walking her before she has a chance to get excited, making her sit when other dogs come past, making her sit and/or lie down if she instigates a play session with my parent's dog once playtime is over and we're trying to relax or do something. But any suggestions would be great to take on board. 

Everyone keeps telling me 'she's just a puppy, she's still young' but I don't really think it's an acceptable explanation. I don't want to stifle her so she can never play but I definitely don't want her to think it's acceptable behaviour and act like it for the rest of her life. 

She is well behaved when calm, obedient and just really easy to look after. But it's a rare occasion that anyone except myself gets to see that side of her.


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## Cassidy's Mom (Mar 30, 2003)

Khan said:


> Everyone keeps telling me 'she's just a puppy, she's still young' but I don't really think it's an acceptable explanation.


How old is she?


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## Stosh (Jun 26, 2010)

That's what I was wondering too


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## fuzzybunny (Apr 29, 2011)

If she's still a pup then that's not unusual behaviour IMO. Since you're exercising her a lot already, have you tried mental exercise like training? I know my guys are usually pretty tired after training and you get to work on your problem areas at the same time. If you're already doing training with her then just keep at it. They do mature and calm as they age.


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## Khan (Jul 19, 2011)

She has just turned 13 months old. Thought I had that in the original post, sorry :crazy:

As for training, I teach her tricks and use them when we play fetch - she has to do her tricks before I'll throw her ball so it's a little more mentally stimulating for her than just galloping for the ball. I have been trying to work on her problem areas as well a lot lately.

If it's normal for her to be crazy right now, that's fine and cool. But I'm a first time dog owner, and I wasn't brought up around dogs, this is all new to me. There's never really been anyone I can talk to about raising a German Shepherd specifically and I haven't seen how another dog of her age would act to compare to her.


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## My Dog Charlie (Jun 14, 2011)

I am a first time dog owner too, and let me tell you my Charlie is a handful. He's almost 6mo old. He's been in puppy class and we've made a few trips to the dog park to keep him socialized. Charlie LOVES other dogs so much it makes him crazy. He loves to play. We've been struggling with his "reactive-ness" on-leash towards other dogs. It's not aggressive but playful. He just can't understand why he's stuck on the leash and I'm telling him he can't go play now. Its very frustrating for him. He'll whine, scream, and occasionally buck.  We've just started obedience 1 class now. 3 out of 3 classes we've had to be escorted off the field for extra help with training. This 3rd class we've made some progress although we can't get back on the feild yet. Let me share with you what I've learned in this short period of time. What we've learned is that the gentle leader gives you great control. When they pull from you they get turned right back to you. We've learned the queues that he's fixating on something. When he does this I have to remove him from that state by calling his attention back to me "Charlie...Here" and pull him gently walking backwards, treat him for coming back and then walking the other direction and then try to go back again. If we get in a situation where I cannot get his attention back to me, that is when we do an about turn and promptly walk away from the situation. When he's calm I can treat him. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. I do believe we're in for a long round of training with ours.


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