The more I read, the more ideas I get about how to work with Callie (a nine-month old Golden Retriever puppy) to help her calm down. As I said before, I don’t expect her to act like a mellow old dog, but she does get a little frantic sometimes — in spite of getting a three mile walk every morning.
Monday night, Barbara had a meeting, so I ordered a pizza and caught up on the TV news, which was mostly about the Southern California wildfires. Callie was out of her crate, in an attempt to give her a little more freedom around the house.
Well, having Callie around with a pizza on the table was probably my first big mistake. She wasn’t trying to steal the pizza, but she kept sniffing and bouncing off four walls and a pizza box at a very rapid rate. She would jump up on the sofa (which we’re allowing) and then jump down to go get a toy. And then back up and back down, up and down at a frantic pace.
Finally, I decided it wasn’t working and put her back in her crate. Trust me, I hated to do this, because I didn’t want the crate to seem like a punishment. So I got a bunch of her favorite toys and some fresh water, and she was happy enough to return to her beloved puppy home.
But later I felt really guilty. And defeated. I thought, “There has to be a better way to handle this.”
What you do is make gentle circular massage strokes from the dog’s head to its tail and keep repeating the cycle. I did this for about ten minutes with Callie, and she seemed to like it. For one thing, she sat still for it. And it clearly did help her calm down a bit — even though this was the first time.
After her massage, Callie went back to bouncing off the walls, but maybe only two walls at a time instead of four. She was noticeably calmer. And eventually she did switch into “get ready for bed” mode and she started gumming her favorite toys.
I feel good enough about the experience that I’ll keep trying it. The result was a great improvement.
As I write, Callie has been in my office for about forty-five minutes. We interacted for about five minutes. She brought me a few of her toys and we played our little “you hold it — no you hold it” game for a few minutes. Then Callie settled down and started entertaining herself with her toys. Right now she’s chewing softly (not hard enough to do damage) on her Legless Dodo Bird (legless because Callie unraveled the twisted-rope legs, so we had to cut them off). But she loves what’s left of the Dodo Bird and shows no sign of destroying it.
Sometimes having a special relationship with Man’s Best Friend is a lot of work!
I have an energetic Chihuahua and it seems like the only time he is completely relaxed is when I massage him. So keep that up. Most of Callie’s energy stems from puppyhood.