It’s an irritating fact of dog life that the walks, play sessions, and training that we do with our dogs to tire them out physically and mentally can often leave them more amped than they were when we started. Just like kids - and let’s be honest, adults - dogs often struggle to chill out after fun, exciting, vigorous or scary events. Their hearts are pumping fast, their cortisol and adrenaline levels are up, and those things take time to settle back down.
But, just like humans, there are things you can do about it. There are a variety of techniques to help a dog calm their bodies down. Plus, dogs can get better at the emotional regulation skill of calming down with practice. Here are a few of our favorite ways to help dogs calm down:
Tip: These techniques are great for helping fearful, anxious, and reactive dogs recover after an upsetting event, but depending on the severity of the issue, it’s probably not realistic to expect your dog to engage in these activities and calm down if the upsetting thing is still happening.
Set up a calming environment
There are a few things you can do to make an environment soothing for your dog:
Reduce stimuli: When your dog’s body is still amped up, they will be more reactive to sights and sounds. So, use sheer curtains, top-down, bottom-up shades, or stick-on window frosting to block windows and fans, air purifiers, or white noise machines to muffle sounds.
Play soothing sounds: Research in shelters shows that classical music and audiobooks are the most relaxing audio options for dogs. In my personal experience, mellow classical music, like the Peaceful Piano playlist on Spotify is noticeably more soothing than something with a lot of emotion in it.
A comfortable spot to lay: You want to make sure they have a spot that’s physically comfortable for them and where they feel safe, which might mean at a distance from kids and other pets.
Company while they relax: Our dogs feel safe around us, and our calm presence can help them calm down as well. I always put my dogs down for a nap before starting work by meditating next to them on the couch before moving to my office.
Give them self soothing activities
Research shows that sniffing helps lower dogs heart rates and cortisol levels and that licking releases endorphins and dopamine, which help them feel calm, relaxed, and happy. Giving your dog a food puzzle that encourages sniffing or licking can help them calm themselves down after an energizing activity.
Snuffle mats: We love snuffle mats for this purpose. There are other food puzzles that encourage sniffing by scattering treats for a dog to find, but those can be exciting for some dogs, which won’t help them calm down. Our favorite snuffle mats come from The Waggly Hound.
Licking-based food puzzles: Lick mats are perfect for this purpose. Look for one that is 100% silicone to make cleaning easier. Some dogs prefer to lick Kong-style puzzles, which also work well for this purpose, as long as your dog doesn’t get rambunctious with them.
Sniffing for treats on walks: You can use mini sniffing/scavenging breaks to help your dog calm down after a stimulating encounter on a walk. Say “Find it!” and scatter 6-10 really, really good treats on the ground in front of your dog. Let them sniff around until they’ve found them all. They may need encouragement at first. My clients are always shocked at how hard it can be for dogs to realize there are treats right in front of their faces and to find them.
Give a calming massage
Gentle touch can be soothing for dogs. This video from the veterinarian who directs the CSU Center for Comparative and Integrative Pain Medicine has a great sequence of three techniques to try with your dog. I find these techniques to be more effective at calming a dog than my normal petting and scratching techniques.
Condition a relaxed response
One of our favorite life skills for dogs is to learn how to relax on a mat (a towel, crate pad, or piece of yoga mat). It gives you a portable tool that helps your dog transition to calm or stay calm during exciting or stressful situations.
At first, your dog might lay on their mat ready to hop up or wagging their tail and panting in anticipation of treats, but with repetition, their body will develop a conditioned response that whenever the mat comes out, they settle down and don’t do anything. It’s a little like how my son can’t help but yawn and rub his eyes every time I sing “The Wheels on the Bus,” which is always the last thing I sing to him before I lay him down to sleep.
So, you’ll want to work on this in training sessions 3-5 times per week for 2-4 weeks before using it to help your dog calm down from an amped up state. You’ll know when the conditioned, relaxed response is happening in their bodies because their posture and body language are calm when they are on the mat. My pit bull got there in a couple of weeks. My sassy beagle mix took a few months.
You can learn more about mat training here.
Putting it all together
Here’s are a few examples of ways I have combined these tools to help my dogs or my clients’ dogs settle down in different situations:
After a morning walk: I start by sprinkling the last quarter of my dog’s breakfast on a snuffle mat. While she eats that, I use our top-down bottom-up shades to block the lower third of the windows, so she can’t see the street but can see trees and sky. I turn the air purifier up to level 2 and play Peaceful Piano over our best quality bluetooth speaker using an old iPad. I fluff up a blanket just the way she likes on her favorite spot on the couch. When she finishes the snuffle mat, I call her over and ask her to hop up and lay down in her spot. Then I sit next to her, our butts touching but not petting her, and listen to a guided meditation, which she also finds very relaxing. 15 minutes later, she’s passed out and snoring, and I get up quietly to work at my desk. The whole process takes 20 minutes, but I was going to meditate anyways, so it only really added 5 minutes to my day.
After a thunderstorm: Once the storm has passed, I do a 5-minute session of relaxing on a mat. By the end of that, Kona’s panting has stopped and she isn’t pacing when she gets up again. I line a Kong with peanut butter and sprinkle in pea-sized bits of boiled chicken and give it to Kona on her bed in the living room, where I’m watching a rom com, which provides gentle background noise. If she doesn’t fall asleep in her bed after her Kong, I’ll give her a massage while we watch the movie.
After a bad interaction with another dog on a walk: As soon as the other dog is at a safe distance (what your dog considers safe, which could be 100 feet away or could be out of sight for several minutes), I play Find It. I let my dog sniff as much as they want for the rest of the walk and may play a few more rounds of Find It, if they seem keyed up. When we get home, if we’ve done the training, I will do a 5-minute session of relaxing on a mat. Then, I’ll give them a snuffle mat or lickable food puzzle while I block all stimuli that might trigger another reaction, given their high cortisol levels, which may take up to 48 hours to fully come down. I may turn the white noise and music up a little louder than usual, knowing that they are in a particularly jumpy state.