Why Your German Shepherd Is Crazy (And How To Stop It)

If your German Shepherd acts crazy then you’re probably wondering why and what you can do to stop it. This post will give you a number of reasons why your German Shepherd might act crazy and will show you what you can do to stop it.

So, why does your German Shepherd act crazy? You’ll often find that it is because it is not getting enough exercise and it is causing it to act a bit crazy. Other possible reasons include a lack of training, seeking attention, boredom, being in a new location, encouraging the behavior with attention when it is crazy, separation anxiety or illness or injury. 

And, what can you do about it?The first step would be to give it more exercise that you are at the moment. Teaching it to play fetch would be recommended since it will wear it out quickly. You should also spend lots of time giving it training on a variety of tasks. You can also try ignoring the behavior, giving it distractions and crate training.  

Before trying to get your German Shepherd to stop acting crazy it can actually help a lot to take the time to try to figure out why it is acting that way. By knowing the cause you will be able to treat it much more effectively.

Why your German Shepherd is crazy

Insufficient exercise

A common reason for German Shepherds to act in a crazy way is that they are not getting enough exercise.

German Shepherds were bred to do energy-intensive tasks for hours on a daily basis. As a result of this, it can take a lot of exercise to properly stimulate them. When they don’t get it they will often become more energetic since they need a way to get rid of all of the excess energy that they have.

If you think that your German Shepherd isn’t currently getting as much exercise as it should then one of the first things for you to do would be to make sure that it does.

Related post: Ways to exercise your German Shepherd.

Attention seeking

The cause of your German Shepherd’s craziness could be because it is looking for attention. This will often go hand in hand with not getting enough exercise. If you don’t give your German Shepherd much attention throughout the day but you do when it acts crazy then it will likely have learned that acting crazy will get it the attention that it wants.

In this situation, your best option would be to ignore the craziness if you can and then to reward it with your attention when it is being well behaved.

Boredom

The cause of the craziness could be that it is bored. To prevent this it’s important to give your German Shepherd lots of exercise, training, attention and toys to play with on a daily basis.

Related post: How to tell if your German Shepherd loves you

A new location

The behavior could be due to you being in a new location. Just because you can get your German Shepherd to pay attention to you and be well behaved in one location it doesn’t mean that it will in another.

The distractions and excitement of being somewhere new can be too much for it to handle and cause it to forget its training. To prevent this it is important for you to make sure to train your German Shepherds in multiple locations.

The behavior is being encouraged

It could be that you have been inadvertently encouraging the behavior by giving it things that it wants in order to get it to calm down. This can have the effect of teaching it that behaving in a crazy way will get it what it wants so it does it more.

Separation anxiety

The reason that your German Shepherd acts crazy at times could be due to separation anxiety. This is where your German Shepherd does not like being left alone and it causes it to behave in a crazy way when you are about to leave, when you are gone and when you have recently returned.

Related post: Why is my German Shepherd so anxious?

Illness or injury

If your German Shepherd’s craziness has come on suddenly then it could be due to frustration being caused by an illness or injury. If you think that this might be the cause then you should take it to the vet.

Nature

It could simply be that your German Shepherd is genetically predisposed to act in a crazy way. Even if this is the case, you can still get your German Shepherd to behave more calmly by giving it lots of training and exercise.

How to stop it from being crazy

There are a number of things that you can do to get your German Shepherd to calm down that I will mention below.

You can look at the book Training Your German Shepherd on Amazon to get more tips on how you can train your GSD.

Training

To get your crazy German Shepherd to calm down it will be necessary for you to give your German Shepherd a lot of training.

By doing this it will get your German Shepherd to be more responsive to your command which will allow you to get your German Shepherd to calm down when it acts crazy.

It will also help to reduce the craziness since it will expend energy in looking for your command and trying to remember what you want it to do. It will also help you to have a better relationship with your German Shepherd since you will be able to get it to behave in situations where you really need it to do so such as when you have guests over.

There are lots of ways that you can train your German Shepherd. You should start with the basics such as to teach it to sit and stay in an environment where there are not too many external distractions.

When you can get it to do the tasks well in a less distracting environment teach it to do it again in a harder one.

Once you can get it to do less challenging tasks you can move onto teaching it harder ones such as to teach it to come to you on command.

Exercise

It’s also very important to make sure that your German Shepherd is getting enough exercise. You might be surprised at just how much exercise it can take to get your German Shepherd to calm down. You might want to try giving it a lot more exercise one day just to see how it affects its behavior.

A good way to give your German Shepherd lots of exercise is to teach it to play fetch. It can be difficult to teach it to do it at first but it is worth doing since it will allow your German Shepherd to do a lot of running over a short time period which should wear it out effectively.

You could also consider walking it with other dogs since they will often expend a lot of energy by playing with each other.

Don’t reward it

If you think that your German Shepherd might be acting crazily because it wants to get attention from you then you should try ignoring it when it acts crazily and then reward it with your attention when it calms down.

When you ignore it it’s important to ignore it completely and not to even give it negative attention as that would still be attention. You don’t have to ignore it for long. You just have to do it for long enough for it to stop acting crazy and then you can give it attention.

Calming chews

There are calming chews that you can get that are designed to calm your German Shepherd down that you might want to try.

Distractions

To get your German Shepherd to calm down you could try giving it lots of toys to play with so that it doesn’t put its attention on something that you don’t want it to like a sofa.

Crate training

If your German Shepherd is misbehaving while you are away then you might want to consider crate training. When done correctly it will give your German Shepherd a place where it can go that will make it feel calmer.

Things to consider

Its age

If your German Shepherd is still young then it is likely that it will be less crazy when it gets older.

Despite that, it’s still important to give it lots of training while it is still young since it will make it easy to manage as an adult.

Be patient

When you’re training your German Shepherd with a goal to make it act less crazily it’s important to approach it with a long-term view since it is something that will require lots of training sessions over a long time period.

Be consistent

When you’re training your German Shepherd it’s also important to be consistent. If you train your German Shepherd once and then neglect to train it for a few weeks then you will struggle to make any progress. Instead, you should find ways to train it easily on a daily basis.

For example, after teaching it the “stay” command, you could make it wait for its food whenever you feed it.

Related Questions

Why is my German Shepherd acting crazy suddenly? If your German Shepherd is acting crazily suddenly then it will likely be due to a recent event. Perhaps it recently lost a friend, you moved home, its owner changed or it might have gotten injured or ill in which case you should take it to the vet.