How to Manage Your Dog's Energy

The body of any animal has two basic energy systems. The nervous system (which includes the brain, the spinal cord, and all the neurons, axons, and dendrites), and the emotional system (limbic system, endocrine glands, sexual and sensory organs). Both types of energy are necessary. For instance you can obtain a great deal of knowledge about a person's internal organs through an MRI machine: a magnetic resonance imaging. But it doesn't work unless you plug it into the wall first.

So it turns out that most dogs who act out, bark too much, get into the garbage, don't get along with other dogs, or just generally "have too much energy," actually DO. They actually have too much electrical energy running through their bodies. And it seems to me that there are four basic ways to use, manage, control, and modulate your dog's natural energy in training.

First let's talk about the differences between electrical energy (neediness) and magnetism (desire).

We all have survival needs, and the survival instinct exists to ensure that we act to protect ourselves from danger, drink when we're thirsty, eat when we're hungry, etc., etc. Sometimes, however, we attach survival feelings to something unrelated to our actual survival needs. How many times do we tell ourselves that we "need" to get to work on time, or that we "need" a raise or a new car. Another example is the kid, like Ralphie in The Christmas Story, who thinks he'll die if he doesn't get the air rifle he wants for Christmas. When we attach needinesssurvival energyto non-essential things it screws us up, it puts stress on our bodies and actually makes us less efficient at getting what we really need. It also makes us feel unconnected from our co-workers, whocome onaren't going to kill us if we're late to work, or our bosses, who are not going to kill us, and it makes us feel like our parents "don't understand" us when they say it won't kill us to not get exactly what we want for Christmas.

But what do we say? "You don't understand! If I don't get it I'll die!"

Yet, here we are. We're all still alive.

On the other hand, when you have a strong desire for somethingand I mean pure desire, without any neediness attachedyou often feel a sense of steadiness and calm as if your desire has created a direct link between you and whatever it is you want so deeply. You are connected.

Desire is governed by the sex instinct; never mind the actual act of mating, the sex instinct governs the creative

aspects of life, in all its forms. When you're in a state of pure desire you almost know you'll get what you want eventually, you have new, unexpectedly creative ideas on how to do things. And if you hold on to that feeling of desirethat fire in the bellyit will almost always bring some kind of positive results. It sets things in motion. This is what I mean when I say that desire has a kind of magnetic energy.

So electric energy runs your survival needs; it has a choppy feel, it makes you feel alone, disconnected, it's chronological, meaning it makes you feel the pressure of time, and it also causes the bad kind of stress on the body. Magnetic energy is desire; it has a smooth rhythm to it, it makes you feel connected, it's timeless, and creates mostly the good kind of stress.

I think this is a helpful model in learning how to manage your dog's energy. And as I see it, there are four basic ways to do that.

The Four Ways to Handle Your Dog's Energy

One: Give your dog a satisfying "ground wire" to offload excess energy.

Ground wires include playing tug-of-war or fetch with your dog, giving him lots of play sessions with other dogs, the "eyes" exercise (found on my blog), some types of massage, and even taking your dog on long walks in nature. (Believe it or not, trees and grass are natural ground wires for a dog's energy.)

A lot of what I "know" about this stuff is intuitive or comes from my subconscious mind. I'll give you an example: The other night I had a session with a new client. They've got a pit bull named Latte who was found on the street, emaciated, over a year ago. She's reportedly been a lovely girl since then, very affectionate indoors, very obedient and willing to learn, but she's started exhibiting occasional leash aggression recently.

When I came in and sat down, she was unable to settle down. We tried giving her a bone or a ball, but nothing seemed to work, so while I was discussing options, describing the possible source of the dog's behavioral problems, and she was still at it, trying to jump all over me, I put my fingers between her teeth, hoping to give her a chance to ground her energy by mouthing my hand. She pulled away, zipped around the room a little, then settled next to me on the couch again and kind of "sneaked" in close and started to nibble my fingers, hoping I wouldn't notice. I let her do that. Five minutes later she was sound asleep.

I actually didn't even notice all this as it happened; that kind of thing happens a lot with the dogs I work with and my mind is usually busy with other things. But in a subsequent conversation with her owner, she told me she thought it was amazing that Latte had been so relaxed that she'd fallen asleep next to me on the couch. That's when I remembered what I'd done with my fingers, and by doing that what I had given the dog permission to do, which was to use me as a ground wire. That's why she fell asleep right next to me.

Two: Upgrade the dog's "wiring/hardware."

This will give your dog a better ability to handle his excess energy levels on his own. Instead of just plugging him into a ground wire (like a tug rag or a tennis ball), this would be similar to replacing old corroded wiring with newer, stronger, thicker wires. It's also analogous to removing emotional blocks. This is where what's called the pushing exercise (found on my blog) comes in handy. Also, certain training exercises where the dog has to change emotional gears quicklythings like the "off-lead heel" or the "down-while-running" and conflict training (found on my blog)would also fall into this category. They make the dog's energy system more productive and less wasteful.

Finally, the fasting exercise, described in Kevin Behan's book, Natural Dog Training, and what I call the Frankenstein exercisewhere you pretend to "stalk" your dog until she barks at you, then you run awayis also helpful at removing emotional blocks in the dog's system and getting it to run smoother. Kevin Behan has a couple of versions of the Frankenstein exercise, described on Neil Sattin's blog.

Three: Drain the battery/shut down the system.

This is where a crate comes in handy. Another thing that helps is NOT feeding into the dog's nervousness. That's part of what worked with Latte the other night. If I had reacted to her energy with any kind of "dominance" or fear, she would've had even more trouble settling down. If you're not reacting to your dog's behavior in a stressful way, she'll have no excess energy to feed off and will be able to calm down much quicker.

Four: Provide a transformer.

This is where praising the dog to settle his nerves works wonders. When a dog has too much nervous energy and you praise him, this will often help him relax. I've described this in more detail (excruciating detail, some might argue) in my article on using praise as a correction (on my blog). But in terms of energy exchange it works like this: the dog is nervous (electric energy), praise makes him feel connected to you (magnetic energy)you've transformed that excess buzzing of electrical energywhich eventually has to find a way to ground itselfinto smooth magnetism, which has more of a gentle, steady hum to it. Make sense? It may seem crazy to praise a dog while he's supposedly misbehaving, but in most cases it actually works much better than saying no because it changes the dog's emotional (or energetic) state.

For nervous dogs who can't pay attention, you can sometimes nterrupt the flow of electricity by applying light shocks on the collar, a well-timed throw chain, etc.; all of these things have a tendency, when applied to an overly nervous dog to shift her focus from choppy/disconnected/solo mood type behaviors to something more like a group mood feeling. Again, you have to be very careful and not apply too much pressure or you'll get the opposite result. So if you don't know what you're doing don't use or rely too much on these methods.

I hope this helps you understand the basic premise of how this modelof the dog as an energy systemworks.