Mad dog

My rescue Elwood is quite manic! Being a x he is extremely strong and is quite big weighing 22 kgs He has a tendancy to run and jump over furniture,people and anything else that gets in his way when he decides he wants to play. I have taken his toys away when he does this to try to calm him as he gets so over excited. Have also said NO loudly and ignored. What am I doing wrong or should be doing? Help! x

when I first picked up Moo she was about 1 and she was bouncing off the furniture, up and down the stairs, just being a complete lunatic!

With stimulation, a lot of exersize, mind games and just pure training she is now the placid dog I love.

How often and how long are you walking him?

Lottie was the same she would barge her way through. The thing is that you need to go back to basics with the training. Ignore bad behaviour or give a firm NO and toys and play are when you say so not when the dog says so. Tug of war is out of the question with Lottie. Stronger dogs win too much and theis will give them the upper hand. Rescue dogs also run on a drenaline for the first few months till they settle so oily fish will help this. It acts naturaly with the dogs body to produce dopamine that has a calming effect. One small sardine in oil every day. You will see a difference in a few months with the behaviour once he settles in and you all get in a routine and start to understand each other. When the bahaviour gets too mucha nd too boisterous put him out in another room ro calm down for a while. Long walks and if you have somehwere you can let him off lead to have a good run and play. We go to the local football field instead of the park theres no one else around. Training is bad enough with our little ones we have brought up ourselves but rescue dogs are more trying but the satisfaction when they calm down and start to act like a normal happy dog is fantastic

(Caryll here - I've forgotten my password & I'm waiting for Steve to reset it!)

As above, but also, what are you feeding him?

jstaff wrote:How often and how long are you walking him?

Feeding him on Lathams as its additive free and hypo-allergenic.

jstaff wrote:How often and how long are you walking him?

He has 2 good long walks a day plus time in the garden. Its at a certain time of day he geos mad, but as its dark by then, he has been for his walk. I take him for a good 2-3 miles each walk.

this might surprise you, I not often enough go for up to 10k runs with my dog and she is off leash zig zagging which leads me to believe she covers at least twice the distance I do yet at some point in the evening she'd do the headless chicken run bashing into things.

if it gets too much I make her to sit and stroke her till she calms down, then treats.

but to be honest I like her going mad, it's one of the reasons I like staffies. if I wanted a dull fat dog I would have had some old badly bred retriever with bad hips.

Bull terriers do that a lot its called bully bouncing and i believe lots of staffies do it to. My dog sometimes, not everyday, will have a mad run around for no reason at all, jumping up and down on the spot, play bowing, jumping on and off and sofa and pretending to bite my ankles. Hes a bit of a mick taker my dog, sometimes when i talk to him he looks the other way and I think hes ignoring me then he comes and jumps on me and gives me a fright
I enjoy it while it lasts, 5 mins later hes gone back to sleep!