Over excitment in 17 week old Rottweiler puppy

by Andee
(North yorkshire)

I have wrote to you befor reference my puppy Jager. The advice you gave me helped loads and i thank you very much for that.

What i’m after now is Jager is very over excited when it comes to feeding times and when we have friends round. She’s now 17 weeks old and when it comes to her feeding she gets very excited and when we calm her down before she eats she is still very tense and her tail is curled under while she eats.

We have tried all your tips but nothing has worked so far. With the people excitement we thought it was just because she was a puppy but it just non stop nipping and jumping up on them. We are very patient with her and devote a lot of our time to training her but nothing is calming her down.

Hi Andee
I’m glad that I could help earlier and hopefully something I can offer here will help with the problems you’re still having.

All puppies are excitable and high-energy, but some just seem to be more ‘hyper’ than others or overly anxious. It may be that Jager is one of these, and that’s not bad, it’s just her personality and something you need to learn to deal with so that you can help her learn how to relax and calm down.

The nipping and jumping is pretty normal and the tips and advice I give on my Stop Puppy Biting should definitely get the nipping under control as long as you use one correction (I’d recommend the water-spray bottle or the muzzle wrap at this point) and use it calmly and consistently… it will take time, but it will work.

In pups or dogs who are excitable it’s especially important to keep the home environment calm and orderly and have a predictable routine to the days. Keep voices low, movements slow and try to discourage running, screaming, jumping around etc. etc. I know in a family home this is tricky but it will really help Jager to calm down. She’s like a little (or not so little!) sponge and she soaks up the emotional atmosphere around her, you want her to be absorbing calm, not more craziness!

Use the tips and advice on my Dog Food Aggression page if you feel that Jager is guarding or protecting her food unduly. But if she’s just anxious and nervous when eating, try giving her her meals in a quiet, private place (ie in the EMPTY kitchen, or in a laundry room, back hallway etc.) where she can eat in peace and relax a little.

It sounds as though you’re working hard with Jager and that she’s actually doing okay overall, just remember that she’s still a puppy, roughly equivalent to a human toddler, and has a lot of growing and learning still to do. Don’t expect too much of her just because she’s big on the outside, she’s still very young on the inside!

Training a pup takes a lot of time, patience, effort and consistency and no results are achieved overnight or even within days, or sometimes weeks. It’s a slow and steady progress that you want to see and if you’re consistent in your teaching and follow the tips I’ve given here then I’m sure you’ll see this type of progress in the near future. Reward her for any good stuff she does and continue to correct her firmly, but lovingly, when she makes a mistake. She is trying to please you she simply doesn’t understand all the rules yet and has limited self control.

Rottweilers are slow to mature and she won’t be an adult until she’s around 18 months to 2 years old, or older, so be patient there’s a long way to go yet 🙂

I hope this helps in some way and continue to wish you all lots of luck.

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