Behaviour
Chewing, barking, racing round the house at ten at night and still not tired. A dog like that tires through his head, and you see the change within days.
Worth knowing. A dog who has suddenly become restless, will not settle, pants and wanders at night, especially an older dog, may be in pain, itchy, have digestive trouble or cognitive decline. Before any plan, get him checked by your own vet.
You have a two-year-old crossbreed, a three-room flat and two walks of twenty minutes a day. The dog chews the chair legs, barks at nothing, and at about ten in the evening starts doing laps of the living room at full speed. Last weekend you took him to the park for an hour of ball and he came home even more wired. Someone told you he is "hyperactive". Below is why a dog ends up like this, why more running does not fix it, and what a day looks like after which he is properly tired, in his head and not just in his legs.
For hundreds of years dogs were bred to work: to guard, to follow game, to herd sheep, to pull. The flat dog of 2026 has the same brain and the same nose, and spends 22 hours a day with nothing to do. What we call "too much energy" is usually a dog who is missing something from a short list.
Sniffing. The nose is how he takes in the world, and ordinary walks rarely let him use it: short lead, brisk pace, "come on, stop dawdling". A dog who never gets to sniff is like a person walking about blindfolded.
Chewing. An adult dog needs to chew every day, for tens of minutes. If he has nothing suitable, he starts on the chair.
Something to learn. A dog who goes weeks without anything new to work out invents his own puzzles: how the cupboard opens, how to reach the bread.
Sleep. An adult needs 12 to 14 hours of sleep a day. Most dogs in homes with children, a TV and a front door that never stays shut get too little, and it is shallow. An under-slept dog looks exactly like one with too much energy: restless, demanding, chewing, jumping up. In puppies it is even more obvious.
Exercise, but not just any exercise. This is the trap. A ball thrown a hundred times leaves you with a dog full of adrenaline asking for the hundred and first. What you are doing is training him: he becomes an athlete who needs more and more to reach the same state. You can tell by how he comes back from the park: panting, wound up, and an hour later raring to go again.
On top of all that comes breed (a Border Collie or a Malinois in a flat with two walks a day has a real need for work that training alone does not cover), age (between 6 and 18 months a dog has an engine and no brakes yet) and the owner's timetable: nine hours alone, then two quarter-hours on the pavement.
A word on "hyperactive". True hyperactivity, as a diagnosis, is rare in dogs, and it is made by a veterinary behaviourist after everything above has been ruled out. Most of the "hyperactive" dogs we meet are short of sleep and have nothing to do with their nose.
An hour of ball. On day one it seems to work: he comes home and sleeps. Two weeks later he comes home and chews. Chasing a ball is sprint after sprint on adrenaline, and his stamina builds. The ball can stay, as ten throws at the end of a sniff walk. The walk itself needs to be something else.
A second dog "so they can play together". Sometimes that works out. More often you end up with two bored dogs teaching each other to bark, and twice the walking.
Punishing the damage. You come home, find the cushion in shreds and tell him off. He links the telling-off with you arriving; the cushion from four hours ago has nothing to do with it in his mind. The next day he chews just the same and greets you at the door with his ears flat.
Ten toys on the floor all the time. Whatever is always there gets boring. Three toys, swapped every week, keep his interest; a box of twenty is just furniture.
"He'll calm down when he's older." Adolescence passes, habits stay. A dog who learnt at one that evenings are for chewing the furniture will still be chewing it at four.
A treadmill or running beside the bike as the only answer. Plain movement, with nothing to think about and nothing to smell. You get the same bored athlete as with the ball, just with stronger legs.
The crate as the cure for destruction. It stops the damage and leaves the boredom exactly where it was. Eight hours in a crate for a dog who already had too little to do are eight hours in which the problem grows.
For a healthy adult dog, the daily target looks like this: something for the nose, something to chew, something to learn, exercise that does not hype him up, and enough sleep. It sounds like a lot. In practice it comes to 60 to 90 minutes of attention a day, half of which you spend with him anyway.
For seven days, write down how long he sleeps (properly asleep, not just lying in his bed), how many minutes he sniffs freely, how long he chews, what he learns, and when the chewing and barking happen. Most people find out this way that their dog sleeps 8 hours and sniffs for 5 minutes a day. You build the plan on the gaps in that table.
All his daily food turns into a search game. Scatter it on the rug or in the grass, roll it up in a towel, put it in cardboard boxes with scrunched-up paper, in stuffed toys (frozen, in summer, they last twice as long), on a snuffle mat. Ten minutes of searching out his meal tires him more than ten minutes of running, and it happens twice a day.
Every day, 30 to 40 minutes, on a 5 to 10 metre long line, somewhere with grass, bushes and fences. He chooses where to go and how long to keep his nose in one spot. You keep quiet and follow. At first it feels as if you are doing nothing. After a week you notice he comes home and lies down without being told.
New things, learnt through play, with good treats and real delight at every success: touching a target with his nose, circling round you, going to his mat, the names of two toys, "find it" from one room to the next. Five minutes of concentrating on something new tires him out visibly. Three sessions a day, fitted in between your jobs.
20 to 30 minutes a day, something that suits his size and teeth, chosen with your vet if he has a sensitive stomach. Chewing is a dog's own way of settling himself. If he has something to chew in the evening, he will not go looking for something of his own.
A mat or bed in a quiet corner, away from the door and the TV. Every time he settles there by himself, tell him softly what a good dog he is and give him a treat; later a stroke and the quiet are enough. In the evening, after the sniff walk and the chew, the lights go down, the house quietens, and he has somewhere to sleep where nobody disturbs him. Sleep is learnt like anything else.
Each game lasts five to ten minutes, and afterwards you have a different dog.
If you enjoy it, a dog sport done regularly: mantrailing, nosework, agility, canicross. Results hardly matter here. One hour of real work a week changes what the rest of the week looks like. With us, the dogs people call "hyperactive" are often the ones who run a long trail best: they have the engine, they were just missing a road.
| Day | What you do |
|---|---|
| 1 | Start the diary. The bowl goes: his evening meal scattered on the rug. Put the toys away, leave three out. |
| 2–3 | First sniff walk, 30 minutes, long line, no commands. The rolled-up towel with food. Something to chew in the evening. |
| 4–5 | Three five-minute games: "touch" and "on your mat". Hide and seek with the family. |
| 6 | Praise and a good treat every time he settles on his mat by himself. A quiet evening, lights low. |
| 7 | Reread the diary: how long he slept compared with day 1, when he still chewed. Keep two things that worked. |
A bored dog is a healthy dog. Restlessness can also have medical causes, though, and your vet needs to rule them out when:
A dog who has worked a trail for 40 minutes sleeps for the rest of the day. He has not been running: he moved at his own pace, nose down. What he has done is make decisions without a break: which way, how fast, where the scent went at the junction. At our training sessions, the dogs who arrive labelled "never gets tired" are usually the first to fall asleep in the car. At home you have the small version of the same thing, searching for food around the house and the sniff walk. For the full version, come along for an assessment.
An assessment for "too much energy" starts with your diary and usually ends with a one-page daily routine and a sport that suits your dog. It rarely takes more than that.
What dog owners search for most often on the internet about this problem, with the short answer.
With his nose and his brain. His meal scattered on the rug or hidden in a rolled-up towel and cardboard boxes, hide and seek round the rooms, his favourite toy hidden under cushions, three five-minute games where he learns something new, something to chew for 20 minutes. Ten minutes of searching tires him more than ten minutes of running up and down the hall.
The ones where he searches with his nose and solves something: cups with a treat under just one, a box of scrunched-up paper with treats in it, a rolled-up towel with food, "which hand", a toy hidden in harder and harder places, a treat on each stair. Tugging and chasing round the house wind him up; searching calms him down. Five to ten minutes, two or three times a day.
Almost certainly not, in the medical sense. True hyperactivity is rare in dogs and is diagnosed by a veterinary behaviourist after ruling out lack of sleep, lack of mental work, pain and itching. Most "hyperactive" dogs sleep too little and have nothing to do with their nose. Two weeks of the plan, with a diary, will show you whether you need to go further.
In the short term yes, in the long term no. Chasing a ball or running beside a bike is sprinting on adrenaline, and he builds stamina: he needs more and more to get equally tired. The exercise that settles him is a sniff walk on a long line at his own pace, plus searching. The ball can stay, but as ten throws rather than an hour.
Around 12 to 14 hours a day, some of it at night and the rest in naps during the day. Puppies and older dogs need more. A dog who gets 8 hours in a busy house looks exactly like one with too much energy: restless, demanding, chewing. A quiet corner away from the door and the TV, plus an evening routine, helps him get the sleep he needs.
A behaviour that appears suddenly or changes for no apparent reason can have a medical cause. For full details, consult your dog's own veterinarian.
They often come together: the same causes, plans that complement each other.
At the window, at the doorbell, at the neighbours, when he's left alone. A dog always barks for a reason, and the plan starts with finding it.
A chewed door frame, a gutted cushion, the third charger this month. He isn't getting back at you. Film the first hour and you'll see if it's boredom or panic.
Bulbs dug up one by one, a hole by the fence, a hole in the shade. Each has a different cause, and the hole tells you which if you look at it properly.
Arm at full stretch, aching shoulder, dog panting with his tongue out. Pulling on the lead is the most practised habit of all, because it works for him every single time.
An assessment session tells you where you stand and which plan makes sense for your dog. The behaviour programme then works step by step, reward-based only.