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How to help a hyper / nervous / badly behaved dog

Updated 01 November 2023
Read time: 2 mins
article author
Written by Guy Blaskey
Founder

There's no such thing as a badly behaved, tired dog

Some dogs have more energy than others. This can be down to breed, genetics, nutrition and many other factors. However one thing is for sure, if a dog is tired enough it will not be badly behaved. If your dog is totally hyper it may need more exercise.

Nutrition is key

Just like with children, if you feed dog junk food they are more likely to behave badly. The first step to getting your dog behaving well is to give them a high quality dog food, like one of Pooch & Mutt's range of grain-free dog foods. There are also specific ingredients that will help keep a dog calm, well-known ingredients like chamomile and lesser-know ingredients like l-tryptophan (an amino acid that the body uses to form serotonin, the 'Feel-good' hormone). All of these ingredients can be found in Pooch & Mutt's Calm & Relaxed food.

Encourage, don't discourage

We may hate that our dogs jump up at people, bark too much and all the other traits associated with hyper dogs. The thing is that we can't tell our dogs that we hate it, and anything that we do to reprimand them can be seen as validating their behaviour. Instead of reprimanding your dog the best thing to do is encourage an alternative behaviour. For example; if your dog jumps up at people, train them to sit at people's feet instead, or if your dog barks when people come to the door, train them to go to their bed when people come to the door instead.

Give them something to do

Whether it is a fear of fireworks or a fear of being left alone, dogs can easily be distracted from these fears if you give them something else to focus on. Somethings as simple as a dog treat, or some peanut butter stuffed in a Kong toy could keep them distracted and stop their negative behaviour. 

Plan ahead

Getting an over-excited dog to calm down will always be more difficult than keeping a dog calm in a situation where they tend to get excited or distressed. If you know that your dog hates car journeys or vet visits for example try to make sure that they are exercised just before, so that they are too tired to get excited. You can also feed them some Calm & Relaxed dog treats before the car journey/ vet visit. These have active ingredients like chamomile, valerian and l-tryptohan which will help to keep them calm.

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