Dog witching hour agony

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP we got a rescue at the start of June. He is about 2-3 yrs old and sometimes gets the zoomies if there are more than the usual number of people in the house (unrelated to exercise, food, training or entertainment). I find these things help, I say "oh no, calm down now". We sit, we encourage him to sit with us and cuddle (calmly) or we give him a chew stick to focus on. All these help. Your dog is different but may respond similarly. Good luck.

This is crazy but I think you figured out my dog’s trigger (OP here). Our dog does great when it’s just me and DD and he follows our routine calmly and doesn’t have zoomies at night. But DH has a pretty erratic schedule and travels 1-3 weeks/month. We also had a relative staying with us for the month of June.

The common thread with both our relative and my DH is that their presence seems to trigger the crazy behavior/zoomies from the dog. DH had to travel abruptly a day after we brought the dog home and wasn’t home for the first 9 days. Now I’m worried that the dog believes that DH is the world’s least responsive wayward sheep…

pp you are responding to - we've had similar things going on in our house, DH traveling, an aunt staying etc. So long as their usual human is doing the usual things, I think it helps stabilize them.

Because these are rescues and we don't know the chaos they lived in previously just being patient and calm is the way forward. There's a bunch of folks on this thread who think the dogs should be treated like police dogs or something. They have no idea.

Maybe, but there are a few of us on this thread who've been adopting/rescuing/fostering/training our whole lives, and have experience you don't that shows there really is a pretty straightforward system that works.

Your rescue dog wants consistency and routine, maybe more than a dog without that history. Being "patient and calm" and doing the human thing of trying to accommodate their behavior is actually backwards in dog-speak. And putting this all on the dog's "usual human" is a great way to get separation anxiety issues.

But what do I know...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a rescue who has never been crate trained. He has his own challenges, but a crate/no crate has zero factor. He's chill at night and even with a herding background, just picks one of us to guard. Just pointing out that this advice isn't universal.

You lead by admitting you've not crate-trained your dog, so how could you possibly know this?

Eyeroll right back. His challenge is that when my wife walks him, he's picky about who he lets near her and is super protective. But yeah, she should take a crate with her on the walks. That would fix it right up. They work with a trainer on walks and he's improving. Yeah, dumb trainer didn't mention a crate either. hm

[Anonymous]

I have a 3yo rescue lab that I’ve had since June too.
I work 12s but not every day. On my days off he gets so munch exercise he’s tired and relaxed in the evenings at bedtime.
On my work days though my tween plays with him
Outside for 10 mins before school then 10-15 mins after school but that’s it til I get home at 630. I walk him and play with him a lot but he’s awake and wants to play til 10pm. I’m hoping the schedule we’re on now will kick in soon and the exercise he gets on my off days carries over to the next work day.
Good luck OP, and thank you for taking in a rescue. This is my 4th and they do make great dogs once they’re given time to settle in.

[Anonymous]

OP I’m the PP with the 3yo recent rescue lab.
He is not crated. I think you do what works for you, I crated him for the first week but he’s house trained and not destructive. There is no reason for him to be confined. He likes laying on our bed or a dog bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I’m the PP with the 3yo recent rescue lab.
He is not crated. I think you do what works for you, I crated him for the first week but he’s house trained and not destructive. There is no reason for him to be confined. He likes laying on our bed or a dog bed.

He sounds like the goodest boy. Why would someone buy a lab when they can rescue one?

[Anonymous]

We have three month old puppy who is fantastic most of the day, but also has this witching hour in the evening. We put her in crate for night at 8:30 and she gets up at 6:30 am. Are you saying she should go in crate earlier? That is family time and she lives to play but tbh she gets a little wound up.

[Anonymous]

Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what's wrong with him doing zoomies in the backyard at night? Does he come in when called? Is he calm once he's inside?

My previous foster used to do this. He'd go outside and do mad zoomies. Once he was done, he'd come inside, and was fine. He was a young dog, and that's how he was managing his energy, because the walks (5 miles/day) were not enough. I don't find anything particularly wrong with it, and pretty much every one of my dogs have done zoomies from time to time (around 30 dogs).

My current foster will grab whatever he thinks will make us chase him around (shoes, dish towels, random pieces of paper). I call him, ask him to drop, and give him a treat. I usually play trading games, instead of keep-away, which is great fun for the dog, and not so much fun for the human.

If you feel that he is wound up/over tired/unable to settle, by all means enforce crate rest during the day. When I have had dogs like that, I toss them in the crate with a sturdy chewie for them to take their frustrations out on, and 20 minutes later, they'd be passed out.

One other idea for you. Some dogs really need to play with other dogs. If yours is dog friendly, it might help to have playdates with a friendly dog, or have him spend a day at doggie daycare once a week. It really helps them get their yayas out in a way that is acceptable among dogs, but not so much among humans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP we got a rescue at the start of June. He is about 2-3 yrs old and sometimes gets the zoomies if there are more than the usual number of people in the house (unrelated to exercise, food, training or entertainment). I find these things help, I say "oh no, calm down now". We sit, we encourage him to sit with us and cuddle (calmly) or we give him a chew stick to focus on. All these help. Your dog is different but may respond similarly. Good luck.

This is crazy but I think you figured out my dog’s trigger (OP here). Our dog does great when it’s just me and DD and he follows our routine calmly and doesn’t have zoomies at night. But DH has a pretty erratic schedule and travels 1-3 weeks/month. We also had a relative staying with us for the month of June.

The common thread with both our relative and my DH is that their presence seems to trigger the crazy behavior/zoomies from the dog. DH had to travel abruptly a day after we brought the dog home and wasn’t home for the first 9 days. Now I’m worried that the dog believes that DH is the world’s least responsive wayward sheep…

pp you are responding to - we've had similar things going on in our house, DH traveling, an aunt staying etc. So long as their usual human is doing the usual things, I think it helps stabilize them.

Because these are rescues and we don't know the chaos they lived in previously just being patient and calm is the way forward. There's a bunch of folks on this thread who think the dogs should be treated like police dogs or something. They have no idea.

Maybe, but there are a few of us on this thread who've been adopting/rescuing/fostering/training our whole lives, and have experience you don't that shows there really is a pretty straightforward system that works.

Your rescue dog wants consistency and routine, maybe more than a dog without that history. Being "patient and calm" and doing the human thing of trying to accommodate their behavior is actually backwards in dog-speak. And putting this all on the dog's "usual human" is a great way to get separation anxiety issues.

But what do I know...

You are so superior to us, who you have never met and don't know how many dogs we've owned or where we got them from. Carry on, its great that even really stupid people can read and write crap on websites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what's wrong with him doing zoomies in the backyard at night? Does he come in when called? Is he calm once he's inside?

My previous foster used to do this. He'd go outside and do mad zoomies. Once he was done, he'd come inside, and was fine. He was a young dog, and that's how he was managing his energy, because the walks (5 miles/day) were not enough. I don't find anything particularly wrong with it, and pretty much every one of my dogs have done zoomies from time to time (around 30 dogs).

My current foster will grab whatever he thinks will make us chase him around (shoes, dish towels, random pieces of paper). I call him, ask him to drop, and give him a treat. I usually play trading games, instead of keep-away, which is great fun for the dog, and not so much fun for the human.

If you feel that he is wound up/over tired/unable to settle, by all means enforce crate rest during the day. When I have had dogs like that, I toss them in the crate with a sturdy chewie for them to take their frustrations out on, and 20 minutes later, they'd be passed out.

One other idea for you. Some dogs really need to play with other dogs. If yours is dog friendly, it might help to have playdates with a friendly dog, or have him spend a day at doggie daycare once a week. It really helps them get their yayas out in a way that is acceptable among dogs, but not so much among humans.

I’m Op and my dog has two kinds of zoomies: safe, normal zoomies (we call him, he comes over to us, he goes inside, he chills) and witching hour zoomies.

His witching hours are spontaneous, crazed, and frankly dangerous. His body gets rigid and the whites of his eyes will show. If we call him or step into his field of vision, he’ll come toward us and pull at our clothes and snap his teeth in the air and growl. It’s an overstimulated, scary state but he seems to snap into it with no trigger save for the hour of the day, and that’s why we are overwhelmed and confused by the behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I’m the PP with the 3yo recent rescue lab.
He is not crated. I think you do what works for you, I crated him for the first week but he’s house trained and not destructive. There is no reason for him to be confined. He likes laying on our bed or a dog bed.

He sounds like the goodest boy. Why would someone buy a lab when they can rescue one?

We rescued one. He was a former breeder dog. He hated men and would become very aggressive when one was around. He was very close to biting my son. Any breed can go against their type depending on how they are treated.

I’ll never rescue a dog again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have three month old puppy who is fantastic most of the day, but also has this witching hour in the evening. We put her in crate for night at 8:30 and she gets up at 6:30 am. Are you saying she should go in crate earlier? That is family time and she lives to play but tbh she gets a little wound up.

How much nap time does she get during the day? Puppies need 16-18 hours of sleep each day.

[Anonymous]

I had a terrier with a version of this! Way less annoying though. It was not sundowning, because he did it his whole life. We called it “bone o’clock” because basically he would get super worried about his bones and scurry around “burying” them in the far corners of the house and then going back to get them and take them somewhere else. There was a lot of whining and pacing when it was bad.

Idk the answer for your dog but I would at least try Prozac if the vet wants to. It’s well-studied and it could help. Honestly it sounds like this dog’s breeding and his job are not a good match. This is the main problem with rescue culture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP I’m the PP with the 3yo recent rescue lab.
He is not crated. I think you do what works for you, I crated him for the first week but he’s house trained and not destructive. There is no reason for him to be confined. He likes laying on our bed or a dog bed.

He sounds like the goodest boy. Why would someone buy a lab when they can rescue one?

Well if you love labs, you presumably support the breeding of labs right? How do you think “rescue” labs appear on earth?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP we got a rescue at the start of June. He is about 2-3 yrs old and sometimes gets the zoomies if there are more than the usual number of people in the house (unrelated to exercise, food, training or entertainment). I find these things help, I say "oh no, calm down now". We sit, we encourage him to sit with us and cuddle (calmly) or we give him a chew stick to focus on. All these help. Your dog is different but may respond similarly. Good luck.

This is crazy but I think you figured out my dog’s trigger (OP here). Our dog does great when it’s just me and DD and he follows our routine calmly and doesn’t have zoomies at night. But DH has a pretty erratic schedule and travels 1-3 weeks/month. We also had a relative staying with us for the month of June.

The common thread with both our relative and my DH is that their presence seems to trigger the crazy behavior/zoomies from the dog. DH had to travel abruptly a day after we brought the dog home and wasn’t home for the first 9 days. Now I’m worried that the dog believes that DH is the world’s least responsive wayward sheep…

pp you are responding to - we've had similar things going on in our house, DH traveling, an aunt staying etc. So long as their usual human is doing the usual things, I think it helps stabilize them.

Because these are rescues and we don't know the chaos they lived in previously just being patient and calm is the way forward. There's a bunch of folks on this thread who think the dogs should be treated like police dogs or something. They have no idea.

Maybe, but there are a few of us on this thread who've been adopting/rescuing/fostering/training our whole lives, and have experience you don't that shows there really is a pretty straightforward system that works.

Your rescue dog wants consistency and routine, maybe more than a dog without that history. Being "patient and calm" and doing the human thing of trying to accommodate their behavior is actually backwards in dog-speak. And putting this all on the dog's "usual human" is a great way to get separation anxiety issues.

But what do I know...

You are so superior to us, who you have never met and don't know how many dogs we've owned or where we got them from. Carry on, its great that even really stupid people can read and write crap on websites.

It's sad for your dog(s) that your ego is in the way of your teachability. If you need to project and take that out on an anon poster, so be it. But you're telling an interesting story about yourself with your decision to engage the pp. A hit dog will holler...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP we got a rescue at the start of June. He is about 2-3 yrs old and sometimes gets the zoomies if there are more than the usual number of people in the house (unrelated to exercise, food, training or entertainment). I find these things help, I say "oh no, calm down now". We sit, we encourage him to sit with us and cuddle (calmly) or we give him a chew stick to focus on. All these help. Your dog is different but may respond similarly. Good luck.

This is crazy but I think you figured out my dog’s trigger (OP here). Our dog does great when it’s just me and DD and he follows our routine calmly and doesn’t have zoomies at night. But DH has a pretty erratic schedule and travels 1-3 weeks/month. We also had a relative staying with us for the month of June.

The common thread with both our relative and my DH is that their presence seems to trigger the crazy behavior/zoomies from the dog. DH had to travel abruptly a day after we brought the dog home and wasn’t home for the first 9 days. Now I’m worried that the dog believes that DH is the world’s least responsive wayward sheep…

pp you are responding to - we've had similar things going on in our house, DH traveling, an aunt staying etc. So long as their usual human is doing the usual things, I think it helps stabilize them.

Because these are rescues and we don't know the chaos they lived in previously just being patient and calm is the way forward. There's a bunch of folks on this thread who think the dogs should be treated like police dogs or something. They have no idea.

Maybe, but there are a few of us on this thread who've been adopting/rescuing/fostering/training our whole lives, and have experience you don't that shows there really is a pretty straightforward system that works.

Your rescue dog wants consistency and routine, maybe more than a dog without that history. Being "patient and calm" and doing the human thing of trying to accommodate their behavior is actually backwards in dog-speak. And putting this all on the dog's "usual human" is a great way to get separation anxiety issues.

But what do I know...

You are so superior to us, who you have never met and don't know how many dogs we've owned or where we got them from. Carry on, its great that even really stupid people can read and write crap on websites.

It's sad for your dog(s) that your ego is in the way of your teachability. If you need to project and take that out on an anon poster, so be it. But you're telling an interesting story about yourself with your decision to engage the pp. A hit dog will holler...

wut?