Never ending energy!!

[lilnuttbutt]

My boyfriend and I have 5 dogs: 1 8 year old foxhound, 1 3 year old rott mix, 1 7 month old pitt, and 2 5 month old pitts. We love our dogs and have a big back yard where they run and play. During the day I'll go out and play with them for a few hours, and walk them twice a day. Some days they even go to the dog park too!

However, the puppies, are non stop energy, and I'm okay with that, they are puppies. However we have two issues.

1. Our one puppy just had surgery to correct her shoulder after it was broken from the dog park, and she has tons of energy. I've been giving her bones, but she can't run around. An ideas how to get some of her energy out?

2. One of our puppies seems bored if someone isn't playing with her, and she digs. Despite burning up energy with her, she digs. I play catch with her (even though she doesn't bring the ball back), I've tried to get her to play "find it" where I'll hide something in the yard and she has to find it (which a couple of the other dogs love) but she still digs. I correct her when I see her doing it, but I'm just looking for some other options.


Thanks a bunch!!

[Karen]

What activities is the first pup allowed to do? Are walks permitted, just no running and jumping?

I don't know anything you can do about digging, other than distract her, wear her out and hope she outgrows it!

Have you tried doing agility training with them? Getting them into a "job" they enjoy can help focus and use up energy ...

[lilnuttbutt]

We just started up agility training to help burn the energy of the pups and get them to excercise their brains, and they are all in training now. So hopefully that will help the digging too.

The little injured pup can't go for walks, jump, run or play. We take her out to go to the bathroom, then keep her in the room with us so that she can't do anything, but anytime anyone comes is or a dog come in, she releases wild amounts of energy. We've been trying to avoid this, but even if we put her in her cage, she still is wild with energy in there and bounces around. The vet gave us medicine to knock her out a bit, and even with the max dose for her size, she still doesn't sit still. Haha. Poor puppy