Your dog's excessive energy might say more about you than them

Doges Editorial · 2026-05-25 · 5 min read

A new study of 730 dog owners found that caregiver stress, training methods, and the owner's own mental health were stronger predictors of 'excessive energy' in dogs than breed or exercise levels alone.

The morning walk is supposed to be the fix. Your dog has been spinning since six a.m., can't settle, keeps bumping into things, took your sleeve in her mouth twice while you were trying to put on shoes. You've read that a tired dog is a good dog. You've heard that border collies need two hours of exercise. You've tried puzzle feeders and sniff walks and longer routes. And yet.

A new study published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science looked at what's actually driving what researchers call "excessive energy" in dogs — the persistent restlessness, the inability to settle, the behaviors that owners describe as hyperactivity or over-arousal — and found that the answer is more complicated, and more personal, than most training advice acknowledges.

What 'excessive energy' actually means

The study, led by researchers at Egas Moniz School of Health and Science in Portugal, surveyed 730 dog owners about their dogs' behavior, their own wellbeing, the training methods they used, and whether their dogs showed signs of fear or anxiety. What they were looking for was which of these factors best predicted excessive energy — not as a clinical diagnosis, but as a pattern of behavior that caregivers consistently flag as a problem.

Excessive energy isn't the same as a dog who is simply active. It's the dog who can't come down, who struggles to transition from aroused to settled, who seems stuck at a high level of activation regardless of how much exercise they've had. It's often what gets labeled "high drive" or "too much for most families" in shelter assessments. And it turns out the factors that predict it are not what most people assume.

The finding that changes everything

These findings highlight the central role of caregiver mental health, perceptions, and training practices in shaping excessive energy in dogs.

The study found that caregiver-related variables — specifically the owner's own stress and mental health, their perceptions of their dog's behavior, and the training methods they used — were significant predictors of excessive energy reports. More significant, in many cases, than the dog's breed, age, or daily exercise routine.

This doesn't mean the dog's behavior isn't real, or that owners are imagining it. It means the relationship between a person's emotional state and their dog's behavior is bidirectional in ways that simple training advice rarely addresses. Stressed owners perceive more behavior problems. Dogs who live with stressed owners show more arousal. The two systems are connected.

The training trap

The type of training method used also emerged as a predictor. Dogs whose owners relied on punishment-based or aversive techniques showed higher rates of excessive energy than dogs trained with positive reinforcement. This is consistent with a growing body of research suggesting that aversive methods — even when they suppress specific behaviors in the short term — can increase overall arousal and anxiety, making the underlying problem worse.

The training trap is real: a dog who is hard to manage gets corrected more, which increases their anxiety, which makes them harder to manage. The cycle can run for years without anyone identifying what's actually happening. The dog gets labeled difficult. The owner gets labeled inexperienced. Neither is quite right.

The anxiety underneath

When fear and anxiety was added to the model, the explained variance rose to 29.5%, underscoring its relevance as an emotional comorbidity of excessive energy.

One of the study's most important contributions is the finding that fear and anxiety in dogs frequently co-occur with excessive energy — and that when you account for it, your ability to predict excessive energy reports jumps significantly. What looks like too much energy is sometimes fear that has nowhere to go. What looks like hyperactivity is sometimes a nervous system that doesn't know how to feel safe.

This matters for how we approach the problem. A dog who is anxious doesn't need more exercise as the primary intervention — or not only that. They need their fear addressed. Which may mean environmental changes, veterinary assessment, behavioral support, or simply a slower and quieter daily routine than their owner's instinct (or the training advice) has suggested.

What actually helps

Interventions should therefore integrate caregiver well-being, training strategies, pain assessment, and dogs' emotional states, in line with a One Welfare perspective.

The One Welfare framework — which holds that human wellbeing and animal wellbeing are interconnected and should be addressed together — shows up explicitly in the study's recommendations. This is still a relatively new lens in veterinary and behavioral practice, but it's gaining ground precisely because research keeps pointing to the same thing: you cannot fully address a dog's behavioral problems without also considering the human in the household.

The researchers also flag pain assessment as a factor. Pain is a known contributor to behavioral change in dogs, and a dog who seems anxious or over-aroused may be experiencing chronic discomfort that has never been evaluated. Before adjusting a training program, a full veterinary checkup — including a pain assessment — is worth doing.

A new way to read the morning walk

For most dog owners, this research won't arrive as bad news, even if it feels uncomfortable at first. The finding that your own stress influences your dog's behavior isn't a judgment — it's actually useful. It means there are more levers available than "more exercise" or "better training." It means your dog's restlessness on a hard week at work is data about the household system, not a permanent trait.

A dog who is spinning and bumping and can't settle might need a longer walk. Or she might need a quieter house, a different training approach, a vet visit to check for pain, or simply an owner who has been given permission to rest. The relationship is two-way. The leash runs both directions.