OVER AROUSAL

Dog’s with Over Arousal have trouble settling- they go from 0mph to 60 mph very quickly and they get stuck at high speeds unable to calm themselves down. Over arousal often gets activated by specific triggers but once the dog is activated they are stuck in “activation mode”. Dogs with this type of profilegives clues such as:

• Pacing

• Stress Panting

• Wide Eyes (Whale Eye)

• Out of control super “hot” greetings with people or other dogs

• Inability to “read the room” and bringing too much excitement to settled scenrios

• Have a very slow recovery from being activated

When a dog cannot settle down it can be a very uncomfortable mental space for them to be in. This behavioral issue can cause a dog to just feel like “too much”, and greatly limit their lives as they can go very few places given their energy is just too hard to handle. Addressing this type of manic mindset can involve detoxing from cortisol in the brain through a very structured schedule, eliminating triggers for a short period while retraining a dog to exist at a calmer state, and slowly reintegrating the dog to open up their world again once they have the tolerance to handle more novel situations. Sometimes we accomplish this by doing a cortisol detox at home, moving your dog to a stay at Board and Train, then transitioning back home to normal life.