Hyperactive Puppy Or Overtired

This is our top puppy tip. MAKE THEM NAP! Again, make your puppy nap.

When we first got Roo, we assumed she would just lay down and sleep when she got tired. NO. She would just go and go until she turned into a maniac. Terrorising things that she normally wouldn't have paid attention to. Biting like crazy. It was a nightmare and it always happened once we had finished work for the day and wanted some down time. If you have a puppy that will take themselves off when they are tired and sleep for hours. You are blessed! Most of us are not to lucky.

One day, we were watching 12 puppies and us, Louise Glazebrook was working with one of the puppies and told the owners that the puppy needed to be having forced naps throughout the day and that puppies should only be awake for an hour at a time (this does change as they get older).

This lead us to completely change our routine with Roo, at this point Roo was around 4 months old. Before it was up at around 6:30am, walk, breakfast, play, hope she napped, chew, walk, play, hope she napped, dinner, play, walk and bed around 10pm.

We switched it to awake for 1-2 hours, asleep for 1-2 hours. When she is awake she is either eating, playing, walking/training or chewing. Puppies reportedly need between 18 to 20 hours sleep a day, so taking into account how much you pup sleeps at night, Roo sleeps for approximately 9 hours a night. She still needs 9 - 11 hours of sleep during the day. Absolutely this will differ from pup to pup but a good rule of thumb is for as long as they are awake say 2 hours, they should then nap for 2 hours.

This was honestly a game changer, not only did it drastically reduce the zoomies, chaos and biting. It also gave us more time not having to watch Roo and make sure she was staying out of trouble. Creating a much happier, less stressed house.

Now Roo sleeps for 9 hours a night, has a 2 - 2.5 hour nap in the morning, a 2 hour nap in the afternoon and a 2 hour nap in the evening. So all in all, she sleeps for 15 hours a day. Less than the recommended but it works for us. This does differ depending on our routine and the day of the week. But if we have something we need to go and do with Roo, we will make sure she has had a good sleep before we go so she isn't overtired - this definitely helps with going to other people's houses with your pup. At the weekend she might skip her afternoon nap because we are on a longer walk or at the beach but when we come home she will probably be fed and then sleep for 4 hours instead of 2. Whichever way you want to slice and dice it, just make sure your pup is sleeping for as long as they have been awake.

Now how we force those naps? A crate. Crate training Roo is the only thing that has allowed us to force those naps. In the begining crate training can be tough but now Roo will run into her crate when she knows it is nap time, happy to be in there. She also sleeps in there at nighttime too. But more on crates in another post.