I've recently realized that people quite often mistake their dog's excitement with over-arousal.

And I think what they're missing is how critically important excitement is to success in dog

training. So today I'm going to share with you how you can tell if your dog is over-aroused

or they're just excited and what you can do

to both make sure you have optimal excitement and what to do if they are over aroused.

Hi, I'm Susan Garrett. Welcome to Shape by Dog. And you know, for me personally, my goal when I'm training any dog is to get a cooperation between the dog and myself so that they

understand that I'm not going to force them to do

anything. I'm going to inspire them. So it's cooperative training that creates a calm and a

closeness. So regardless of what it is that I'm going to ultimately end up doing with that dog,

cooperation, calm, and closeness is always

at the middle of it. And you might say, well, Susan, heck, you do dog agility. Like, you don't,

where's closeness and calmness and that? Guess what? Everything, including my high drive agility

dogs. There's a trust that comes from the cooperation that we have in our training and they will not

be able to perform at their highest level if there isn't an inner calm to what looks like

this exterior of mayhem. It's calm and it's a closeness between us that creates the performance

that many people think looks

like hysteria, but really is a well-calculated, orchestrated performance. So often people will say,

well, Susan, I just want my dog to settle down. I want my dog to settle down. I need you

to understand that when you try to force calm, you actually are suppressing. And it is possible,

especially with force, with physical force, to put the dog into a moment of fear where that

you will suppress behavior. But I know if you're listening to this podcast, that is not

something that you want.

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