Pooch and Mutt's expert trainer, Jon, is here to show us how to tire out your high-energy puppy.
Due to needing lots of nutrient-rich food to aid their growth and development, puppies have LOTS of energy. This is often burned off through play, and sometimes mischief. For puppy parents, this can be a lot to keep up with. That's why we need to find proactive methods to keep their rambunctious nature under wraps and keep them out of trouble.
Tiring out a high-energy puppy
- Physical exercise and mental stimulation are an important part of having a happy healthy puppy. Bored and restless puppies are a recipe for trouble and many behavioural problems arise from a lack of physical and mental enrichment.
- Exercise your puppy but be careful not to exhaust them because that is counterproductive and can make them cranky, causing behavioural problems. Also, effectively running your puppy into the ground daily could cause physical injury.
- Exercise needs to be mental and physical. It needs to be a controlled release of energy and mentally challenging. Exercise that mimics or taps into their instinctive behaviour of chasing, hunting, searching, retrieving and tugging is enriching and helps us train desired behaviours at the same time.
- Walking is a great place to start. Even if your puppy hasn’t completed their vaccinations, you can pair the early stages of leash training with walks around the garden or house.
Try putting out appropriate obstacles for them to climb over or different surfaces to walk on. This is a great blend of exercise, mental socialisation and physical exercise.
- Games are a great way to tire your puppy. Hide and seek for example, whether indoors or out in the garden, will physically tire them whilst also engaging their natural hunting instincts. Keep it simple at first, simply calling them and dashing to hide behind the sofa. The beauty of this game is that the reward can be food, a toy or affection.
- Making mealtimes fun through searching games is also a good mix of mental and physical stimulation for puppies.
- Remember when using food in a game to tire out your puppy, we want more mental stimulation than physical, as we need to be careful mixing large amounts of food with excessive physical activity.
- If you have a puppy with a strong toy drive, then the garden is a good place for some mental and physical exercise. This type of puppy will love to go and fetch thrown toys, but we can also exercise their brain by adding a search phase to it.
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