Hi there,

I was just wondering if anyone has any ideas on how to drain the excess energy of an almost 13 week-old puppy without stressing his joints or putting him at risk of injury. Our puppy classes don't start for another month and we can't really take him places where there are a lot of other dogs yet as he hasn't had his last round of vaccines. He's way too young for pulling, jogging, wearing a backpack, doing agility, or any of the fun stuff we plan to do with him later.

We walk him around the same sparsely populated route several times daily (about 6 km in total per day), and play with him for about an hour per day (fetch, tug of war, toy on a string, laser pointer, etc.) He plays very energetically with our other dog (a rottie/jack russell mix) for about an hour per day, and entertains himself tossing toys around, pouncing on them, and chewing them for about 2 hours per day. But even with 6 hours of activity per day he still seems to have a lot of excess energy. Is this normal for such a young puppy? Does anyone have any ideas of what else we can do with him at this age? He's driving us a bit nuts.

It is very normal for a young puppy... I would suggest doing some training, 10-15 minute intervals throughout the day, it works just as well as a 15 minute walk and helps to both stimulate them mentally and physically.

Glad to know that amount of energy is normal!! I should have mentioned we train him every day. We mix it in with play and use the NILIF training system. So far he has" sit, lay down, go to your bed, you wait, leave it, off", and "come here" figured out pretty well. Are there any other useful commands he should learn at this age?

I also taught Cally paw, other paw, roll over... sounds like you have the basics down so you can start on the fun tricks lol

Another idea would be to introduce the hand signals if you haven't already. With Callie, I waited until she had her sit and started introducing my hand with the palm facing up. Now she actually responds to that more than the verbal cue.

If you're crate training, I'd also teach "in" just for those situations where the dog needs to be out of harms way, such as a broken glass in the kitchen. This is also assuming "go to your bed" is different from going to the crate, just because I teach them as two different things. I use go to your bed for a sort of time out when Callie gets too rough or isn't listening.

And after that, you can always practice fetch in the backyard! Then there's the annoying little squeaky toys that they'll use energy trying to "kill." And never underestimate the power of a laser pointer.