My Puppy Goes Crazy Sometimes! What Do I Do?

This post may contain affiliate links. We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

Guess what? My puppy goes crazy sometimes too. Does this sound familiar:

Puppy springs across the room, runs into the wall, jumps up on you, bites your hand, pulls on and tears your pant leg, dives under the couch, sprints back, and runs into the screen door…repeat for 30 minutes.

Yep! Those are our pup’s exact actions this morning!

QUICK ACCESS: If you’re having puppy training problems then you should join our Puppy Training Tips email list and get instant access to our New Puppy Owner Checklist PDF. To get started CLICK HERE.

Not to worry folks, you’re not alone.

Every puppy we’ve raised has had these momentary lapses of craziness before reverting back to that calm, sleepy puppy lying on the doggy bed.

A sleeping puppy is a good puppy. 🙂

QUICK RECOMMENDATION: Speaking of dog beds one of our favorites is this Portable Dog Bed by Carlson. It’s raised off the floor and great for travel and outdoors especially if you like taking your dog camping.

My Puppy Goes Crazy Sometimes!?

We recently got an email from a reader asking us if we thought her puppy might be the spawn of Satan…

…I wanted to ask you if there could be a serious issue with my puppy.

I think she is the spawn of Satan or at the very least possessed. When she is being corrected or is extremely tired she turns into a vicious out for blood puppy.

She is 9 weeks old…she will not submit for over half an hour till I give up.

Then she passes out (not without one last lunge at the face). She makes god awful noises also during this time…is this normal?

I’ve been praying to God more the last few weeks than I have in my whole life!!!! –J.C

Spawn of Satan…Vicious puppy…Out for blood…

Our assessment? She could be:

1. Vampire – after all puppies do have little dagger-like teeth.
2. Zombie – the zombies that sprint like in Zombieland. Not the slow Walking Dead zombies.
3. Spawn of Satan – according to the Omen that would make her puppy Damien. UPDATE: Do you watch American Horror Story: Michael Langdon Puppy.
4. Puppy – with a case of the zoomies.

Yep, she’s just a puppy, not the Spawn of Satan.

Since I started raising puppies for Guide Dogs of America way back in 2006 I’ve only had one puppy that may have been the spawn of satan…not naming names, but it was quite the Journey…

The problem is what do you do when your puppy goes crazy?

We have a few answers that might help save your favorite pair of jeans as well as help you avoid a few puncture wounds to the hands, legs, and feet.

What Do I Do When My Puppy Goes Crazy?

So what do you do when your puppy goes crazy?

1. Give Your Puppy His Favorite Chew Toy – A favorite chew toy can get a puppy’s attention off of craziness long enough to calm him down. Plus we’ve heard the chewing motion helps to relax a puppy. We usually leash our pups and let them sit by our legs with a favorite toy. Some of our favorite chews for puppies are
   • Beef Collagen Sticks – One of our favorites and it takes a puppy a while to gnaw on these things.
   • Hide-Squirrel Toy – One of our favorite plush toys. It entertains puppies a little longer because they are busy removing squirrels from the stump.
   • Deer Antlers – we only use these with our pups and not the older dogs because we’ve heard many stories of cracked teeth.
   • Nylabone Double Action Chew Toy – Adelle’s favorite toy! Be careful if your pup drops this on your foot it’ll leave a mark.
   • Classic KONG Toy – Some dogs love them (Dublin). Some dogs can care less (Linus). We love its simplicity and durability plus you can fill it up with peanut butter and freeze it to keep your puppy busy for a while.
2. Cradle Your Puppy – We had the luxury of raising our Golden Retriever, Bear and his siblings since birth and started cradling these little guys when they were one week old. One thing we do when Bear gets the extreme puppy zoomies is cradle him between our legs for a good 5 minutes. This calms him down and usually, when we release him from the cradle he wanders over to his doggy bed for a little nap.
3. Channel Your Puppy’s Energy In A Positive Way – Instead of letting your puppy go nuts running around the house uncontrollably try engaging in a game on your terms by teaching your puppy to fetch. Our little Bear is a Golden Retriever so fetching his toys comes naturally and he enjoys playing the game. Even if your puppy already knows the game of fetch we’d suggest using a leash or long line to make sure your puppy always comes back to you. This could also be a good time to work on your puppy’s recall and teach him his name. Getting your puppy’s mind on track can often time break him of the crazies.
4. Manage Your Puppy With A Tie Down – Tie downs are a great tool to manage your puppy. When our pups are showing a little bit of their satanic side we will sometimes put them on tie-down (always supervised) with a toy. This is very similar to #1, but instead of keeping our puppy near us, we have them on tie-down away from us. QUICK RECOMMENDATION: Our tie-down is essentially a wire cable similar to this one: Tie Out Cable except ours is only 4 feet long. You can use a leash instead of a cable which we have, but we have had puppies gnaw right through the leash if you’re not paying close attention.
5. Let Your Puppy Take A Break In His Crate – As J.C. mentioned her puppy goes crazy sometimes when he is “extremely tired.” If this is the case we will sometimes use our crate to calm down our puppy, but be careful because you don’t want your puppy to have a negative association with his crate. When our puppy is extremely tired and doing the “crazy thing” he will go right to sleep in less than 60 seconds after being put in the crate. Our trick is we will usually lure him to and into the crate with his favorite treat then once inside the crate we’ll give him a couple of treats and in under a minute our puppy is snoring away.
6. Stimulate Your Pup’s Mind With Interactive Puzzle Toys – There are several dog toys that will stimulate your pup’s mind rather than their zoomie bodies. Here are a few we’ve tried and liked:
   • KONG Wobbler – Stetson loved the KONG Wobbler when he finally figured out how to get the treats out of it. Check out our video of Stetson playing with his Wobbler.
   • Dog Brick Puzzle Toy – I’ve been working with dogs at a boarding facility which has given me access to tons of puzzle toys. This one is one of our favorites for working our dog’s brain.

And that folks is how we solve the puppy crazies.

Every puppy is different so one of these methods will undoubtedly work better than the others.

So, if you try cradling your puppy and it doesn’t work too well to calm your puppy may be a good chew toy, or a supervised tie-down will work best for your little guy.

QUICK RECOMMENDATION: As we previously mentioned we sometimes use the crate to help calm our crazy puppy. We love and recommend the MidWest Life Stages Double Door Crate w/ Divider. We still use the first MidWest crate we bought for Linus over 13 years ago. Can you say durable!

Now back at you. If you’ve ever raised a puppy what do you do when your puppy goes crazy?

Tell us about your experiences in the comment section below.

Save to Pinterest

Top Picks For Our Puppies

1. BEST DOG CHEW We Like: Beef Collagen Sticks - All of our pups love to bite, nip, and chew. We love using Collagen Sticks to help divert these unwanted behaviors.
2. BEST PUPPY TOY We Like: Calmeroos Puppy Toy w/ Heartbeat and Heat Packs - Perfect for new puppies. Helps ease anxiety in their new home.
3. BEST DOG TREATS We Like: Crazy Dog Train-Me Treats - We use these as our high-value treats for our guide dog puppies.
4. BEST FRESH DOG FOOD We Like: The Farmer's Dog - A couple months ago we started feeding Raven fresh dog food and she loves it! Get 50% off your first order of The Farmer's Dog.

Check out more of our favorites on our New Puppy Checklist.