If your Rottweiler acts crazy then you’re probably wondering why and what you can do to stop it. In this post, I will show you common causes of the behavior and what you can do about it.
So, why does my Rottweiler 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 I 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 Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler is crazy
Below are common causes of Rottweilers being crazy and what would make them more likely to be the reason why yours acts crazily.
Insufficient exercise
Rottweilers are a breed that is meant to get exercise daily. When they do not get enough exercise, it can cause them to behave abnormally and it might be a part of the reason why yours has been being crazy. This would be more likely if it is crazier when it is not able to get exercise.
Generally, it is recommended for them to get at least an hour of exercise per day as healthy adults.
Attention seeking
The cause of your Rottweiler’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 Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler lots of exercise, training, attention and toys to play with on a daily basis.
A new location
The behavior could be due to you being in a new location. Just because you can get your Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler in multiple locations.
The behavior is being encouraged
It might also be the case that you have encouraged the behavior by giving it things it wants when it behaves that way. If you tend to give it things such as toys, treats or extra attention, when it is crazy, it will likely do it more in order to get more rewards.
Instead, it would help to reward it when it is being well behaved, to wait for it to stop being crazy before rewarding it and to give it lots of positive reinforcement training.
Separation anxiety
The reason why your Rottweiler acts crazy at times could be due to separation anxiety. This is where your Rottweiler 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.
Illness or injury
If your Rottweiler’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 Rottweiler is genetically predisposed to act in a crazy way. Even if this is the case, you can still get your Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler to calm down that I will mention below.
Training
To get your crazy Rottweiler to calm down it will be necessary for you to give your Rottweiler a lot of training.
There are lots of ways that you can train your Rottweiler. You should start with the basics such as to train 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
As mentioned above, it is important for Rottweilers to get daily exercise. Generally, they are meant to get an hour of exercise per day as healthy adults.
Don’t reward it
If you think that your Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler down that you might want to try.
Distractions
To get your Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler is misbehaving while you are away then you might want to consider crate training. When done correctly it will give your Rottweiler a place where it can go that will make it feel calmer.
Things to consider
Below are some things to consider about your Rottweiler being crazy.
Its age
If your Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler 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 Rottweiler it’s also important to be consistent. If you train your Rottweiler 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.