My puppy's "witching" hour???

[Sue]

Hi, I have an 11 week old F2B goldendoodle. She is a great puppy all day but really goes through what I call her "witching" hour between 8pm-11:30pm.....During this time, she gets extremely nippy, jumpy, growling and often has a zoomie or two.....It can get pretty scary for my kids as they are usually the ones she "nips, bites, jumps on first.....Has anyone gone through this and what advice or help can you offer....She does eventually tire herself out but I wish it did not cause so much stress as we sort of see this behavior coming so would like to curb it......As a note - she is exercised 1-2 walks per day plus some play time with balls in backyard.....

Any thoughts, recommendations would be greatly appreciated even if it is just to say "she will outgrow it"......I feel that our days our great and then when we are going to bed ( obviously when we are more tired as well) she starts up....

Thanks

[Sue]

We give her the bully stick at this time in her "timeout/calm down" room. It has been working really well....We have started to realize that she was over tired....She is a pup who needs to be told to "sleep" and in the beginning we weren't giving her her quiet space/time...this has made a huge difference....The other thing is we have stopped trying to tire her out....We so wanted her to sleep through the night that we were trying to get NOT to sleep and this then created a little monster at night time...now we let her sleep and she is sleeping from 10-6am....Ask away....We are going through the same things and should use each other's experiences to help us...Thanks ....

[Sue]

We give her the bully stick at this time in her "timeout/calm down" room. It has been working really well....We have started to realize that she was over tired....She is a pup who needs to be told to "sleep" and in the beginning we weren't giving her her quiet space/time...this has made a huge difference....The other thing is we have stopped trying to tire her out....We so wanted her to sleep through the night that we were trying to get NOT to sleep and this then created a little monster at night time...now we let her sleep and she is sleeping from 10-6am....Ask away....We are going through the same things and should use each other's experiences to help us...Thanks ....

[Marie + Marshall]

See this is what we found out too- there was so much push and discussion to exercise and tire him out...that we ended up with a completely over tired, cranky puppy. Even now at 1 year old, he has a strict bedtime of 9:00pm at the latest and he sleeps to 6:30 am week days and 8:00 weekends. I just think it is something to consider (over tired), when trying to clam the crazy's :)

[Cammy Todd]

Our puppy Izzy turns 5 months old today!  It is such a fine line between enough exercise and making them over-tired.  I see two instances of the zoomies in our house -

1.  When she has too much pent up energy.  When she gets zoomies for this reason, she listens better to commands and with some guidance we can get her to calm down. 

2.  When she is over-tired.  This is when she gets REALLY naughty and won't listen at all and we end up putting her in time-out. 

It does get better I promise.  I NEVER thought I would say this because the first time it happened I thought my puppy was possessed, but the zoomies are kind of funny and cute when they happen for reason #1.   We just make sure she is in a safe place and will calm down with a little guidance, especially when the kids are around. 

I will also add that for a family with kids, I would work on adjusting her bedtime earlier.  These dogs are pretty adaptable and really start to regulate to your family's schedule.  We have created a routine that when the kids go to bed between 8:30 and 9:00, Izzy lays on the floor in front of the couch with my husband and I so we can have some down time.  She is usually asleep within 10 minutes.  We wake her up to potty right before we go to bed and then she sleeps through until morning.  We will adjust this routine a little early when school starts back up in less than a month!

[Shawn And Calvin]

Our 12 week old does it too.  I remember when our son was little he was the same way.  get all wound up and wild before bed time. Maybe it's their way of burning off extra energy before its time to sleep.