Maggie's nightly manic behavior question

[Wendy Martinson]

My six month old labradoodle goes absolutely wild right before bed each night. She gets tons of attention and exercise each day but right before bed she goes wild. We would like her to spend time with us before she goes into her crate for bed each night but she is just to wild. My last dog was a standard poodle and she was very mellow at night. Is this the lab in Maggie? It reminds me of when my son was a toddler and would get wound up right before passing out for the night.

[Richard Crowe]

When Holly would do the zoomies, I did the preemptive action like Adina suggests.

I used a laser beam and Holly would chase it around the yard right before bedtime.

I would make sure not to run her around in any small and repetitive patterns becsuse that might have gotten her neurotic. He would just course after the spot of light all over our quite large yard.

This seemed to relax the zoomies out of her.

She has also been a lot more relaxed by not sleeping in a crate.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

She has a case of the zoomies - enjoy!!! Ned used to, and still does sometimes, race through the house,out the doggie door, into the sprinklers, back into the house and up onto the furniture, finally stopping by burying himself in bed pillows - too bad if you are in the bed also!

[Lisa]

I don't think it's the lab in her: Barkley, our 8-month-old goldendoodle does the exact same thing. His is not the same as the zoomies, where he runs and runs, low and fast to the ground, hurdling anything in his path. This is a more interactive mouthing and jumping behavior, one he doesn't seem able to control. What we've found works best for Barkley is to give him something he really likes to chew, something that takes a long time to finish, like a bully stick, and make him stay on his bed to eat it. When that doesn't work, we give him about 15 minutes to a half hour outside by himself. When he returns, he's usually calmed down enough to sleep.