I have learned that Nellie (my 18 month old, spayed Patterdale bitch) is very easily excited - meaning that it takes very little to get her adrenalin levels up through the roof, and those levels then stay topped up for some time.  I have always believed that the answer to hyperactivity lay in plenty of exercise, and she certainly gets this - she gets 8 hrs free exercise 4 days a week, and is walked by me for 40 mins twice a day (or once for at least an hour and a half), on each of the remaining 3 days.

Unfortunately, it seems that her free exercise tops up her adrenalin levels during the week - even though she comes home tired every night - leaving her energised, over-excited and over-sensitive to stimuli on the days I need to walk her.

I accept that the problem has developed because she had far too much freedom too soon (i.e at a young age).  After a nightmarish few days on Dartmoor after Christmas, where her excitable behaviour escalated and she charged frantically at walkers and dogs, barking aggressively, and even chased some horses, I no longer feel comfortable letting her off the lead even on familiar walks at home.  She used to be fine off the lead, and I certainly do not have any fears about her disappearing into the distance - her recall is fine and she sticks close to me, and she used to greet and play quite nicely with most dogs - she has been well-socialised.  But this has fallen apart of late and I feel as though I don't trust her not to dash off towards anything of interest anymore.  She barks and lunges at passers-by, barks and lunges at other dogs on the lead, and can be aggressive towards other dogs smaller than she is (she often starts a noisy scuffle).  She doesn't mean any harm and I am certain she would never truly hurt another dog, but thats very easy to say from my end of the lead isn't it. :(

We have walked for miles this weekend, but I didn't let her off the lead once.  If I'm honest, we were both much more relaxed as a result, but we need to re-build that trust in one another I think.

I have trawled the net looking for suitable classes for her, and when I finally found some I was told I could not attend until I had dealt with her "anti-social" issues.  I was referred to a behaviourist, but she is very expensive considering the level of service you get.  I got another referral to somebody else and contacted him, but he hasn't had the courtesy to reply to me at all. 

I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do next.  Any thoughts on how I could approach these problems myself?  I'm not sure I know where to start!

Thanks for reading.

Susie

I can sympathise with the adrenalin levels escalating through the roof, most terrier owners understand it all to well!

What actually happens during her 8 hours free exercise?  Does she have total free reign to pretty much do what she wants, or is she actually doing something constructive?  By constructive I probably mean something which entails co-operation with you. I'm sort of imagining the it's the free reign option - I know that if my terriers where allowed to do pretty much as they wanted for 32 hours a week then they'd probably find it really hard to compromise during the rest of week. 

  I have always believed that the answer to hyperactivity lay in plenty of exercise, and she certainly gets this - she gets 8 hrs free exercise 4 days a week, and is walked by me for 40 mins twice a day (or once for at least an hour and a half), on each of the remaining 3 days.

No, the answer is using the brain rather than the body -the more exercise she gets, the more she will crave it. I'd try calmer games of search and similar where she has to use her brain and nose. That will tire her out a lot more than exercise. :) What is she fed on -it isn't Bakers is it? (The one food known to cause hyper active dogs.)

No I wouldn't say she was doing anything constructive at all!  She shadows my husband, basically trotting around after him in whatever he is doing (he looks after 50 acres of paddocks and gardens) - if he's harrowing or topping the fields, or cutting the lawns, she runs alongside the tractor or the mower.  If he's doing something in the greenhouse, the veg patch, or something reasonably stationary, she will amuse herself by playing boisterously with the other dogs (2 standard poodles), or digging, or hunting rabbits in the woods, or flushing out and killing the odd rat.  If he's doing something down at the stables, she'll search for mice, or just pester the horses and eat horse manure (which she then vomits up with clumps of hair on our bed at night :)).  She has been known to chase the horses in the fields, but as long as he is quick he can get her back before she starts the chase.

So, other than staying very close to him all day, and hunting and playing with the other dogs, she's just "busy busy" without actually being closely supervised.  She doesn't stop, all day.

I have suggested crating her for part of the day to "simmer down", but he won't accept it - he says its cruel.

So compromise we must try to do....funnily enough, he doesn't understand how difficult it is to walk her at the weekends, with a bit of discipline!!

Sorry Marianne, cross posted.  Yes, you're right - I have been doing some clicker training with her, and some searching games, and whilst she is constantly on the move she seems to enjoy them.  She gets bored quickly though.

No, she certainly isn't fed on Bakers!!  In fact we have difficulty keeping weight on her, so she has a good quality dry food, 23% protein (made by Trophy Pet Foods), fed along with raw tripe.  She has never been a good feeder and she is quite thin.....

Skipping through quickly what others and yourselves said my aussie was like that and changing his food to one with no additives or preservatives completely changed him. What we did first to see if it would work was put him on tripe and wholemeal biscuit for a week and the transformation was incredible this was when I look carefully in different foods but nothing over 23% protein, also we only gave the complete food as one third and the other two thirds made up of tripe and vegetables.

Hi Susie

quick reply here (advert break LOL) but along with Marianne I agree mental workouts are more tiring.  Reading your responses it seems to me that she is building up her stamina levels on a daily basis so whether most of her lengthy exercise periods are at a trot or full blown gallop the more she does the more she'll be able to do - and crave doing :)

I'd try giving her a routine mental workout - with you, rather than your OH.  Whether using clicker training or some thought provoking and ever changing pattern to obedience combined with basic agility equipment.  I'd recommend you do this in the morning, then give her a brief run around and then settle her in the kitchen or wherever of your choosing with a stuffed kong for a couple of hours.  She needn't be crated but she needs to learn 'time-out' :) Repeat again in the evenings or late afternoon and make this a daily if possible routine.

IMO if you dont curtail her basically unchecked/unsupervised free running exercise throughout the course of the day she'll simply remain as is or worsen.

Working with a dog on mind games, making them think and pay attention to you in anticipation of your next request of them builds a stronger bond and one which should help you mould her other behaviours better, especially when walking on lead with distractions stimuli etc

Behaviourists can be hit and miss - try and source one from personal recommendation and ideally a member of the HERE  :)  Some calling themselves behaviourists have merely done a 6 weeks crash course on behaviour - without ever having to have owned a dog of their own never mind trained any :(

I will check back later should you reply :)  I here the music starting up on my programme LOL

Sounds like a blissful environment for your average terrier/adrenalin junkie! If it were me she'd stop at home and I'd do the exercising/training/constuctive fun stuff.  I sort of agree with your husband but it's not an ideal world and she does need to learn some self control and the ability to compromise.  Good luck with that!

  Reading your responses it seems to me that she is building up her stamina levels on a daily basis so whether most of her lengthy exercise periods are at a trot or full blown gallop the more she does the more she'll be able to do - and crave doing :-)

Yes, to elaborate this a bit more, I'd like to tell everyone of my wonderful best friend who sadly died in 1995. Not a day goes by without me thinking about her.

Gunvor was a dog trainer and a very talented one -and before her time. She was using plain collars in the 70s when everyone else used choke chains. When I met her (I was only 13 at the time) she had a GSD and a Cavalier. BOTH were obedience champions, yes the Cavalier too. (This obviously being in Sweden.) We met through a common interest in small animals and she was the person who got me interested in training dogs and she helped me out a lot with my first dog who I got as a rescue.

When these two ob.ch. bitches died of old age, Gunvor got a rescue GSD. She also got very, very interested in keeping fancy mice. She put animal welfare above anything else. Nobody on earth could have cared more for her animals than she did. But as the years went by she started to talk so much about being stressed due to lack of time. She was not working any more for health reasons, she had the one dog and perhaps ten mice. You wouldn't think that would take a lot of time looking after, but to her, it did.

When I was visiting, Gunvor hardly ever had time to sit down. The dog needed walks and training (a lot of walks) and each and every mouse was taken out in turn and exercised on the kitchen table where a mouse agility course had been set up. It literally took all day, a LONG day, every day, to exercise the MICE. But the more they got, the more they craved, the more they demanded. No longer were they happy to sleep in their (4 foot long!!) cages, they wanted to be out and running about in their tunnels etc. Likewise the dog, I NEVER, not once, saw this dog relax. (The previous two always did.) She was pacing like a caged animal all the time she was indoors, so she got more walks. That made her relax even less, so the walks increased again. Gunvor was a clever trainer but also a bit eccentric and we all (i.e. her friends) told her if she cut DOWN on the amount of exercise for all the animals, life would be less stressful for both them and her, but she never listened. She was only 47 when she died of an asthma attack -stress related or not, who knows.  It all just goes to show that any animal can get over stimulated by a well meaning and caring owner though. I believe the dog settled down really well in the new home she was given after her owner's death. (By then I was living in England and we didn't have the pets passport scheme yet, otherwise the dog would have had a home with me.)

Thanks for those replies, Teri and Marianne - and what a fascinating tale about the lady with the mice!

Its true that her time at home in the house, when she isn't snuggled up with us, is largely spent pestering us for a game or a walk.  She is on our heels all the time, waiting to be taken somewhere.  I put a beanbag bed in the window (we have a sort of window seat) so she could look out and amuse herself when we were busy, but now that is over-stimulating for her and she barks like a loon when she sees another dog. 

She has a medium kong and I've stuffed it with all sorts from pate, to hot dog sausage, to chicken paste - but once she's extracted the bit she can reach, she loses interest and wanders off.  She doesn't seem to be the least bit motivated to get every last bit, like most dogs would.  I froze it once but she wouldn't touch it.  She has plenty of chews and toys, but she only plays with them when we are home - if we do leave her alone (which happens a couple of times a week, mostly weekends, and we have left her for up to 5 hrs), she sleeps in her spot in the window, waiting for us patiently, and doesn't touch any food or toys or chews while we are gone.

When it comes to training, she does get reasonably interested - I play "find the toy" with her, but because she has to wait to find it, she tends to lose patience and dash after me as I'm placing the toy, or simply loses interest.  I have to keep finding new ways of varying the game, otherwise she walks or away or starts making up her own rules. :)  We've done a bit of clicker and I have at last taught her to lie down (even the trainer at puppy class failed to get her into a down!), but she won't give me a "rollover", and she hasn't grasped the concept of raising a paw - I've tried free-shaping it, but she still tries sitting and lying down to get me to click, looking at me blankly without twitching a paw.

I need some new ideas and some variations!  I've signed up for a free online clicker training course I saw in another post, but she doesn't seem very interested (maybe she doesn't see the point!) in following the target stick, so we're a bit stuck at lesson three.....

*sigh* She is exhausting, we thought that we would have a beautifully calm dog due to all the exercise and wonderful freedom we could give her.  That was the only reason we considered a terrier (she comes from working stock too).  None of the books tell you that activity begets hyperactivity!!

I feel a bit bemused about where to go with our training sessions, as she is rather sceptical about everything and doesn't grasp the NILF concept - if she can't play a game whenever she wants, for nothing, then she'd rather go and look out the window and ignore you than ponce about for treats and listen to that annoying click, thank you very much.

Is there a MENSA test for dogs?  I'm not sure if she'd score very very high, or very very LOW.......:)

Hi Susie
The one thing that struck me about your posts is that your girl is a great manager!  She manages you beautifully to get just what she wants!  :-)  One of my dogs did this to me; he had no self control whatsoever.  I had to teach him to lie down, relax and do nothing!  He now has a 'settle' cue which is his off switch and a crate which is his den that he chooses to go into during the day and night of his own volition.  (He's only ever shut in there when my bitch is in season.)

Re the Kong.......don't feed her one night - she won't die, then put her dinner in the kong and give it to her the next day.  She doesn't have to have food in a bowl every night and a little bit of hunger can be a great motivator!

Re the clicker....a lot of dogs don't like to roll over, so don't worry about that.  You can teach the sit, the lion down, the dropped hip down, the twist and spin in a circle, the walk backwards, crawl on the floor, picking up items and putting them in a box, the list is endless! 

If you are trying to freeshape the target stick and not getting the interest, then 'lure' her.  Shove a bit of pate on the end and when she licks it, click!  Do that a few times and she should then get the idea. Alternatively, you can get her to target the back of your hand.....same principle if luring, shove some cream cheese on the back of your hand, show it to her, let her lick it and click.  Then move your hand a few foot in front of her and if she walks up to it for another lick, then click again!  And so on.....   :-)

HTH

Forces giant wriggling red furball into sturdy box - details for delivery label please Gunner, here comes trouble :-D

I have enough grey hairs already coping with my own reprobates, thank you, Teri!  :-) 

Also.....my local post office will not take kindly to any more livestock being posted my way!  Last week I had a missed delivery of an item that was too large to go through the letterbox;  I got it redirected to my local PO and went to collect it yesterday, only to discover that whilst it had my address, it had a different name and also a label that said LIVESTOCK ENCLOSED - HANDLE WITH CARE.  Now I certainly had not ordered anything like that over the internet!

Anyway, the postmistress and I tentatively opened the accompanying paperwork to see listed '60 LIVE locusts'!!!  EEK!  :-0 Well, they may have been alive once, but four days on I think the poor things were definately deceased!  :-(  From an email on the paperwork, it transpires that someone in the next village had ordered the things for her sons pet lizard! 

I have told the PO that in future anything alive is to be returned 'not known at this address' - that includes red furballs too!  :-)

PS  I am still having nightmares about the wretched locusts!  Imagine if I had been in, accepted the delivery and opened the box without looking at it in too much detail!  I could have 60 locusts swarming around my house right now!  Shudder!  Shudder!  Enough to drive a woman to drink....................

Crumbs   You've had your problems kiddo! 

> Imagine if I had been in, accepted the delivery and opened the box without looking at it in too much detail!

Confession - I was hoping that's how it would work with MadAss ........ hmmm, so that ideas gone belly up.

> Enough to drive a woman to drink....................

Ah, new tactic - Can I interest you in a 'traditional warming Belgian' erm, beverage (of sorts)  (comes in very sturdy container ...... :-D )

Nice try Cyril!  :-)

No offence, but I prefer my 'beverages' to be of the Germanic kind!  :-)  Even if the darlings did totally lose their marbles AND the plot in the snow today!
Now......where's that bottle of Frankenwein??  

C'mon be fair - you were (basically) spared the plague of locusts LOL. 

> to be of the Germanic kind!

Don't be racist!  have a Belgian! I'll tell him not to mention the w@r  :-D   I promised myself (and all who know him) he'd be reformed before they met again - instead he's re-grouped having formed a manic alliance with his big sis and even managed to get mum on board (and I'll now drink just about anything LOL).  Behaviour Board - we have a problem   

C'mon be fair - you were (basically) spared the plague of locusts LOL.

OK...just 'cos Pharoah copped for the locusts and I didn't, does that mean I have to suffer the other nine plagues of Egypt? And PRECISELY which one does the red furball count as? :-)

We're going to get our wrists slapped by a Mod for this sooner or later, Teri!  :-D

Apologies OP!  :-)