Training tips: managing excitability and promoting calm

00:11 S1

On Vision Australia radio, you're listening to the Seeing Eye Dogs Show - with me, your host, Harriet Moffat. Today I am joined by puppy development trainer Steph Shaw, who is joining us to talk about excitement and calm in our puppies and dogs. What does it mean for your dog to be excited? What are the signs of excitement and in particular nervous or anxious excitement? How do we calm our dogs and how do we prevent our dogs and puppies from getting overexcited? We're going to chat about this topic from the lens of both younger puppies and adult dogs. So if you want to know more about your dog's energetic moments, keep listening. I hope you enjoy! 

Hi Steph, thanks for joining me on the show today.

00:54 S2

Hi, Harriet. Thank you for having me.

00:57 S1

Could you please start off by introducing yourself?

01:00 S2

Yeah. So I'm Steph, I'm one of the puppy development trainers at Seeing Eye Dogs. So I've been with seeing eye dogs for about a year and a half, and before that I was an assistant dog instructor for about nine years.

01:16 S1

Wow. That's a fairly fair amount of experience in that. So you've probably seen quite a lot of different dogs and different things probably related to the topic that we're about to talk about.

01:24 S2

Absolutely. Yep.

01:26 S1

What does a productive calm look like for our puppies and how might that change as they age?

01:33 S2

Yeah. So... I guess the definition of calm for a working dog, like an assistance dog or a seeing eye dog is, um, a little bit different than what we might see in a shelter dog or a pet dog or something like that. So the kind of calm that we need in our working dogs, it's just like a productive state, right? We need a dog with a really good off switch, but they're still able to listen. So what that might look like is a dog that's got, you know, soft muscles. They are able to look at us and they've got, you know, nice, soft, blinky eyes. They're interested in engaging with us, taking treats. And if we ask them to do something, they're able to do it.

02:21 S1

How are your expectations of what that looks like, vary from... say, a puppy who's eight weeks old, you know, fresh out of the centre to your dog in, you know, in training with that, what you described. Would that be a, potentially a slightly older dog?

02:35 S2

Yeah. So with the younger puppies, they really rely very heavily on a lot of support. So I guess when we're thinking about a dog's natural state, they very naturally need a big range of emotions. And if you've ever had a human toddler in your house, you would know that at that age, feelings can be really big and sometimes explosive, and that is completely normal. So I guess going through the life stages as a really young puppy, our puppies are going to rely really heavily on their human partner for what we call co-regulation. 

So like a human baby, they're going to let us know, sometimes very loudly, if they are hungry or thirsty or tired or whatever. And they really need us as that, you know, parent or guardian figure to step in and look after them and show them expectations, what we need. And they often mirror our emotions a lot. So if they're with someone who's, you know, nice and calm, breathing slowly, talking calmly, they really take that on board and sometimes it's really obvious. 

So I was out with a little 12 week old puppy the other day who was with me over the weekend... nd he saw a big German Shepherd, and he'd never seen a big dog before. And his initial reaction was a little bit of panic. He was like, Oh my God, what's that? Oh my God. And I just, I just held him and I went, It's okay, buddy, it's a dog. It's a friend. And immediately he was like, Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. Cool. Hi, I like you. You're my friend. So that... yeah, just really cool to to see how they learn so quickly, how we expect them to emotionally respond to things at that age. 

And by the time that they're, um, an adult, we're really expecting them to be able to self-regulate and to know what emotional state is needed in which particular contexts. And that doesn't mean being calm all the time. There are times where being excited is the right reaction. So, you know, if we're out and about and wanting our dogs to, you know, play with the kids, jump in the pool, run around at the dog park, it's completely appropriate for that dog to be excited to have a higher energy level. Be bouncy, zoom around. You know, that's part of the joy of having a dog is those moments. 

But we really don't want those behaviors happening... you know, if we're letting our 90 year old Grandma in the house, we don't want our dogs to be zooming around, bouncing off the walls, barrelling into her knees. So, you know, they really need to understand the context and what's appropriate.

05:44 S1

And so I guess it's a little bit the same as, like a jacket on and jacket off for our dogs too. So that potentially is part of that cue as well.

05:52 S2

Yeah, it definitely can be. So, you know, when we do things really consistently... so if we have a really set pattern of expectations of our dog's behavior, potentially, you know, with the coat on or, you know, maybe it's when we sit down at a cafe, that's our cue, you know, nothing's going to happen. You can just switch off now... they really take that on board. So yeah, consistency is so important. And I think everyone knows that you've heard that about dog training is you just need to be consistent. And that's part of the reason why.

06:30 S1

And on the flip side, how do you know when a puppy is getting overexcited? And what might that look like?

06:41 S2

Yeah. Yep... so I guess the emotional state of a dog, we've got kind of two real main modes with the nervous system. So we've got the sympathetic nervous system, and that's the fight or flight. So I'm sure you've all heard that term fight or flight. But it doesn't just relate to danger or fear. It's also the same state that our dogs go into when they are excited. And then we've got our parasympathetic system, which is our rest and digest, and that's the opposing system. And they work in harmony in our bodies, and only one can be on at a time. 

So they control different things. So it controls our heart rate. So if you think about, you know, if you had just watched a scary movie and you're in a dark room and you just hear a random noise and suddenly your heart starts pounding and you've got this like, jolt moment... it's exactly the same as what happens in our dogs. So you're going to have that faster heart rate. You're going to have the faster breathing. And in the tiniest fraction of a second, you sort of jump into alertness and all of your blood flows to your extremities. 

So you might see... you know, a dog suddenly starts... panting even though it's not hot or they haven't been exercising. That's a sure sign that they've got a little bit of, you know, adrenaline in the system. You're going to see a lot of faster movements. So where a dog who's calm might have soft muscles, they're going to be moving slower. A dog who's excited is going to be moving faster. Yeah. You're going to have the faster heart rate, the faster breathing... as the blood rushes from your digestive system to your extremities, you're going to become suddenly less hungry. If you're really frightened, you might even, you know, pee yourself. 

And that's not very common in our, um, adult dogs, but it's definitely something that you'll see with a baby puppy, like an eight week old puppy that just gets overexcited and they just do this little widdle. The first thing I do when I walk into the home of a puppy raiser and the puppy comes up and it's all, like, bouncy all over me, wiggly, I'm like, let's go outside because your puppy's about to wee. Yeah. So, you know, it gets things up, gets things flowing. So yeah, you're going to notice generally primarily you're going to see them do this like intense stare, focus at whatever is triggering that excitement. You're going to see the panting and you're going to see a lot of movement happening.

09:46 S1

And so how can you tell the difference between excitement, you know, about something that they like rather than kind of activation by stress or fear? So, you know, the difference between the dog being afraid of something and, you know, the puppy being excited because, you know, you've arrived, for example.

10:03 S2

Yeah. Yep. yeah. So I guess the physiological signs are pretty much identical. So, um, you're still going to have all those things we talked about with the heart rate, the breathing, um, the adrenaline in the system. But what's different is just the mindset and the expectations. And that can show up as body language signs. So a dog who's confident and excited, for example, you might see a big tail wiggle like a big swishy tail side to side. They're going to be, um, you know, either ears perked up, have a bit of movement towards whatever they're excited by that can come in the form of just moving towards things, but it can also look like lunging towards things, which is a really common issue for the adolescent dogs that I work with. And you might see this big happy smile on their face. 

Whereas a dog who's more worried by something, you might see movement away. So they might be sort of balking, lowering their body, trying to avoid. Sometimes you get a bit of a shutdown. so it can look like a dog, you know, freezing in place. And rather than a smile, they're going to have a lot of tension in their face. So if you compare side by side, it can be really obvious. And you can have as well dogs that are in fight mode where they're in a bit of a negative mindset, but it's not fear based. And that's where we sometimes see our aggressive dogs. That one actually, though, is much less common in seeing eye dog puppies. 

But yeah, it can be something where there's a bit more nuance to it. And especially if a dog's really frustrated, sometimes the barriers are pretty thin. So sometimes we'll get a call about a dog who is lunging, barking, being incredibly full-on, and we really have to use our experience to tease apart, you know, is that frustration trying to get to a dog because I want to play? Or is that actually, you know, I'm guarding you from this dog or I don't like that dog. So yeah, sometimes it's really obvious and sometimes not so much.

12:28 S1

A bit a bit more complicated, I guess. In that way.

12:31 S2

Yeah, yeah.

12:33 S1

So are there any other reasons why they might get excited or you know, what might what might be a common trigger for some dogs to get excited?

12:40 S2

Absolutely. So I guess if you think about things that would be natural reasons for a dog to get excited, it would be... you know, hunting type triggers. So if they're seeing a bird and they're sort of expecting that bird to take flight and they really want to chase it down, so often animals are our trigger for dogs to get really excited. Often it's social. So and especially in our field, because we breed dogs to be really... extra social and get a lot of value out of being with people... being friendly with other dogs sometimes, you know, goes a bit too far, and we have dogs that get overexcited when they see another dog and they're really anticipating wanting to, you know, wrestle and play. 

And if you know someone's coming to the door especially, or, you know, kids running chances to play all of those, you know, active, social, playful type triggers are really, really common. And the other thing can be, you know, something sudden and unexpected. So, you know, maybe they hear a noise outside and they can jolt awake and suddenly get really excited.  I'm sure we've all had... if you've had a dog, you've probably seen them do the... I've heard a doorbell on a TV show, and I launch myself from a dead sleep. Yeah. So all of those things are really common, but it can be very specific to your dog... depending on what they enjoy in life. Really, yeah.

14:27 S1

I guess even food and toys and any, any of their own things too, if you kind of pick it up or something, there might be like, Oh, what are we doing now? Fun!

14:35 S2

Yeah, exactly. It's that anticipation of something, you know, enjoyable with a lot of movement and a lot of engagement.

14:46 S1

So if you have gotten to that stage where you know your puppy is a bit overexcited, you know, and you need to calm them down, how might you do that?

14:57 S2

So the first thing that you're going to want to do is if you can get them away from whatever's triggered that excitement. So if it's a some obvious environmental trigger. So say it's that bird. It's that kid bouncing the basketball. You know, that's easy enough. We can just walk them away. I find it's really important to give very calm, clear, direct cues. So you don't want to be standing there holding the end of the leash, going, Hey, dog, come on, calm down. Because they're not in a rational mindset when they're in that, you know, overexcited state, their rational brain has just shut down. It is unavailable, and they're not thinking logically. 

So we really need to get them to a space where there's less going on environmentally before they can actually take on board our input and start to calm down. And then what we want to do is give them outlets that trigger behaviours that are naturally calming. So if you think of, like if you've ever been, like, overexcited as a kid, you know, maybe you're, you know, you've got all this pent up energy and you're running up and down the hallways. If someone tells you to calm down, it doesn't work. You can't do that. It's not a simple off switch. But what you can do is channel that activity into something more appropriate.

16:29 S1

Something more focussed.

16:31 S2

Exactly. Yeah. So you might... remember your Mum from childhood going, Go play outside, Go bounce on the trampoline, something like that. So just directing you to an outlet that's more appropriate. So for some dogs that might be holding a toy or doing a, a tugging activity. For others that are more food driven, it might be, you know, doing some obedience cues like touching your hand and getting a treat, touch your hand, get a treat doing really fast games where they're just doing one simple thing and getting immediate reinforcement feedback. So it's, you know, that burning off of energy and it's that focusing of the mind. 

And then we're going to try and direct them to a sort of activity that gets them moving more slowly and breathing slower. Slowing down that heart rate. So things that are naturally calming for a dog include things that are chewing, licking, sniffing especially. So sniffing is so important for our dogs. And you know, if it's a human getting excited, you would know that trick of, you know, you take a deep breath or breathe and count to ten. That sort of thing. We can't tell our dogs to do that, but getting them to do a sniffing activity actually has the same effect where it's that, you know, regulation of the breathing that actually it's a biofeedback response. 

So as your body starts to do those calmer things, your body goes, oh, you're doing a calm thing, so you must be calm. And we're actually then switching on that parasympathetic nervous system where we're starting to calm down. So a lot of our dog toys are actually designed with this in mind, as long as we use them correctly. So Kongs, for example, like almost every dog owner I know has a Kong. So we can, you know, put some whatever kind of food they like in there and get them licking, get them chewing. We can, if we've got a sniffy mat or a lick mat, get them, you know, sniffing, licking, looking downwards, breathing slowly. We can, you know, give them toys where they're tugging on it a bit, and then we're slowing down, letting go so they can just chomp away at it. So it's just meeting them where they're at and then slowing it down. Does that make sense?

19:14 S1

Yeah. And I like the point of kind of doing something in the interim. So from that really super, super hyped spot, I guess kind of doing something that's more of a fast activity. So like kind of a moderate pace and then to calm rather than just kind of, yeah, go from zero to go from 60 to 0, I guess. I think it's... an interesting point.

19:39 S2

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, if we're taking a dog from, you know, sort of a active, engaged, but not overexcited state and wanting to calm them down until they can switch off, then we can do things like, you know, sitting down with them, talking calmly and slowly, stroking them to, you know, get them fully switched off. But if you try and do those things while they're crazy overexcited, they are not going to take it on board. They're probably just going to jump up and headbutt you, or mouth your hand, or grab the leash or something like that. 

So, you know, if you think about... if you were in the middle of a football game and your Mum came out and started to do a shoulder massage, like, it's just really weird, right? It doesn't feel appropriate context. Yeah. So we need to, you know, do the.... Okay, we finished that activity. Now we're doing a cool down and now it's calm down time.

20:38 S1

Mm. So I guess that kind of leads on to the, the last and kind of final of my... questions that I had for today, which was, you know, how do you prevent that puppy from becoming overexcited in the future?

20:52 S2

Absolutely. Yeah. And that's so important. Like if we can stop things before they start, that's just so much better than doing damage control. So obviously a really big part of it is having a good routine that meets our dogs needs. So, you know, making sure they're getting enough sleep, is huge. And that's such a big one for baby puppies, especially. Almost always like the first suggestion I make, if I'm hearing about a little puppy that's having, you know, real shark mode, like being completely feral is, I just make sure, you know, are they doing it because they're excited, or are they doing it because they need a nap? 

And it's almost always they've just too... done too much. They've gone past tired and out the other side into the crazies. And if we can calm them down and get them to have a nap, they are good as gold. And, you know, we're making sure that they get their exercises, their outlets. We're giving them that, you know... healthy diet, all of those sorts of things. Usually that's a bit of a given if we're thinking about seeing our dog puppies. But the thing sometimes we miss is making sure if it's... dogs that they're getting really excited about. 

And that is like the main thing that I get asked about, with a seeing eye dog puppy is people will say they're just really excited around other dogs. What do I do? And it's one of the main reasons that our dogs might get released from a seeing eye dog program and not be successful is that they're overexcited around other dogs. So... making sure that if they're doing it because they really value engagement with other dogs, that they do have some outlet to actually hang out with dog friends... where maybe we're setting up puppy play date or, you know, walks and cafe stops with dogs that they get to know on a regular basis. 

So, you know, we're just not going. No, you can't do that. We're going. Absolutely. You can have friends. That's that's a good thing for anyone. But when you're working, you know, then you have to focus and ignore the dogs. So we're trying to give them an outlet, but put it in context. Um, and if we can catch our dogs before they get overexcited. So let's just say you're walking down the street, your dog spots a dog. So you might notice that they will suddenly, you know, perk their ears up. They will bring their head up. They will start staring at a dog down the street. Um, you'll notice that little bit of, like, I've gone from, like, loose and flowy to. Oh. What's that? 

If we can catch them in that moment and keep them from getting overexcited, um, we are going to have so much of an easier time than if we just kept walking, and then they lose it. So our switch from, like, being calm to overexcited is super quick and it takes a super long time to calm down from there. Whereas if we can just keep them calm, that's easier. So that might look like as soon as we see that whoa moment, we get them doing our, you know, touch the hand. Here's a treat. Touch the hand, here's a treat. Or Look at me, here's a treat. Or maybe for some dogs who don't like food, I might get them to, Here's a toy. Hold the squeaky toy as we go past. 

So we're trying to keep them engaged with us, keep them doing some, like... entertainingly intense game. So we're giving them that little bit of an outlet, but keeping them in that thinking brain, before they go over the top, excited. Yeah.

24:52 S1

I'm guessing probably the more time they spend in that very, very overexcited spot, the more they get used to that as a reaction to some degree.

25:01 S2

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's... yeah, as well, if they're seeing dogs and they always get overexcited and react to dogs, we're building that as a pattern and they start to expect, oh, I get overexcited when I see dogs. It's actually one of the reasons we don't recommend, really intense ball chucking activities and fetch activities for our seeing eye dog puppies is, if you think about how excited and intense they get during those big fetch games, if we're doing that for half an hour a day, we're really priming their nervous system to anticipate and even need that real overexcited time of day. 

And if they don't have that outlet, suddenly you've got that carrying over into other aspects of life, and you're getting a lot more excitement in other activities that you really don't want.

25:59 S1

Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and chatting about excitement and calm.

26:04 S2

Yeah. Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.

26:11 S1

You've been listening to the Seeing Eye Dogs Show on Vision Australia Radio. I hope you enjoyed my interview with puppy development trainer Steph Shaw. We have so many tips and tricks and interviews with information from our experts in training and behaviour, health and dog care, available on your preferred podcast platform or our Omni FM page. Don't forget to check it out if you'd like to learn about Seeing Eye Dogs, the work we do, or becoming a handler or volunteer or supporting us, head to our website. For other information and upcoming events about our carer volunteering programs. Or head to our website at Australian Volunteer. 

Thank you for listening to the Seeing Eye Dogs Show. Don't forget to tune in same time next week for another episode of the show.