Always On. Never Off. Time to Settle.

Who this is for

Your dog is worn out and still won’t relax. It follows you around and whines and gets up and lays back down somewhere else, and it just never switches off. Sound familiar? Being calm is something a dog learns, and a lot of dogs never get taught it, so you can train an off-switch the same way you’d train a sit, with a clear cue and a whole lot of practice that gets paid.

• Your dog never seems to switch off
• It’s tired but still restless
• You’ve got a high-drive dog that can’t relax inside
• It paces, whines or keeps moving spots all evening
• You want a dog that can settle at a cafe or a friend’s house
• You’re tired of a dog that wants attention nonstop
• You exercised your dog and you still get no peace

Signs your dog has no off-switch

• Tired but still pacing, whining or can’t lie still
• Follows you room to room and never settles
• Always after your attention, even after exercise
• Gets up and lays back down somewhere else every few minutes
• Amped up and restless every evening
• Has a hard time relaxing in public or new places
• Only stops when it finally crashes

If the restlessness also comes out as jumping, nipping and attention-seeking, a lot of times all of that goes back to a dog that isn’t getting enough to do, see dogs hyper after walks.

How to build the off-switch, step by step

There’s three pieces to it. Catch the calm on a mat and reward it quietly, add a settle cue once your dog’s pretty reliable at being still on the mat, and then go practice it in new places. And since a wound-up dog can’t practice calm, you always get the energy out first and pay the relaxing that comes after.

Step 1: drain, then capture calm on a mat

Give your dog a mat and pay any moment it’s still and calm and quiet about it. You’re paying for relaxing, so keep your own energy low and just drop the treat down between its paws without making a big deal. Do that for a while and your dog starts hanging on to the calm longer to earn it.

Step 2: add the settle cue

Once your dog’s calm on the mat pretty reliably, give it a name. Say your cue, wait for the dog to settle, then pay, and that word starts meaning relax, till after a while just saying it helps get the dog there.

Step 3: practice everywhere

When it works at home, take the mat out. Practice the settle at a cafe or a friend’s house or somewhere busy, and then the off-switch goes wherever you go instead of only working in your living room.

What relaxed actually looks like (so you know what to pay)

This part trips people up, cause a dog lying down isn’t the same thing as a dog relaxing. A vet handout from Today’s Veterinary Practice lists the signs to mark: “hips shifted to the side, stretching a leg out, putting a shoulder down, lying on one side, putting the head down, or placing the chin between the paws,” plus “sighing, closing the eyes, or slowing the breathing rate.” Those are the moments you pay.

• Keep sessions short. The same handout says sessions should ideally run “2 to 5 minutes, 2 to 3 times per day,” and that you can still make progress with one 30-second session a day.
• Build time slowly. It starts at 2 seconds of relaxation before the reward, then 3, 5, 10, 15, 30 and so on, and if the dog can’t hold it you back up “by at least 5 seconds” and go slower.
• Want the full version? Veterinary behaviorist Dr. Karen Overall published a much longer relaxation protocol in 2013, and that handout links to it.

Use play to practice it

Here’s one people don’t think about. The AKC actually says “a game of tug-of-war, a flirt pole for chasing, or even just wrestling with your dog are all great ways to teach them to settle down. Simply add moments of calm into the middle of the fun.” Start with gentle play, stop and ask for a sit or down, and restart the game as the reward, then slowly turn the intensity up before each settle break.

The Whimsy Stick: drain first, then settle

The off-switch works best on a dog that’s already tired. A flirt pole gets the energy out quick, so the calm training after it has a chance to stick, and it’s a good place to practice the settle too, cause you’re stopping the lure, asking for a down and waiting for calm right when the dog’s most fired up.

The Rugged XL is one 46-inch piece of reinforced fiberglass with no joints and an 800-lb Dyneema line, for dogs 30 lbs and up. Under 30 lbs? That’s the Standard, with a 450-lb Kevlar line. I bought the flirt poles I could find, handed them out to clients and watched what broke, then designed my own and tested it on high-drive client dogs for years before I ever sold one.

Every order has a 30-day money-back guarantee, and you pay return shipping unless the pole failed.