Donna has the doggy zoomies

It is quite possible for time to stand still… if you capture it in a snapshot. :P And lots of things can be done with it when it comes to changing that moment to becoming something more or less than what it is. I am talking about picture editing, of course, where Donna’s shenanigans at the dog run is partaken in this picture by her photoshop clone Donna-02. :P

Roxy the Travelling Dog identified that what Donna was doing in this post – Dog Run – was called the zoomies. If you’ve not heard about it before, you’re not alone. Neither did I. :P

“Did you know what you were doing was called zoomies, Donna?”
“Who cares? I just run for the heck of it. You overthink things, human!”

Note: This is Donna and Donna-02, her photoshop clone first published in Run. Wildly. Crazily.

Zoomies, or what is more technically referred to as Frenetic Random Activity Periods (FRAP), are bursts of activity, where a normally calm dog starts to speed around. In Donna’s case, she would dash around in circles in the dog run or at the beach, and she may also gallop towards a human or dog, pull a sharp stop right in front of them and then gallop away in a different direction.

More photographs of our beach outing :)

These crazy bursts of activity don’t just occur outdoors, and ‘puppies and young dogs are most likely to display such bursts of “craziness” ‘, which lessens with age. Now that I think back, the first time Donna had the zoomies was the first homestay she had with us. She had became over-excited and very much unmanageable from playing and was bounding up and down the sofa, heedless of “stop, stop, stop!”

Not a video of Donna but similar, except that Donna is bigger than this dog, I think.

I was truly alarmed then. I even worried that Donna was going to bite me when I tried to stop her.

From her point of view, she was just having crazy fun jumping on the sofa… – -!

Of course, the first things I did when we adopted her for real was to read up on and to start positive reinforcement of calm behaviours. :P It took perhaps around three months for her to adapt to her new life and for it to become significantly evident that she has become a calmer dog*. She never had such uncontrolled bursts of frantic activity in the flat after that. Besides training in calmness, we have also learned to stop play before she starts to get over-excited.

Eventually, it appeared that she was perhaps too calm… or lazy. :P So a couple of weeks ago, we started to play more tag at home to keep her active. I didn’t realise it then, but perhaps the body language I used to play tag with her has somehow become a “zoomie cue” that she is starting to respond to. At home, her excitement was at least contained – short, sharp jerky motions, one spin now and then rather than frantic uncontrolled spins.

While FRAPs are just a normal release of energy, they can be a problem if the house is small and the dog is large… Most dogs these days are “born retired” and don’t get all the exercise they need. If your dog careens into the zoomies outside, no harm done: Just enjoy the sheer joy of your happy dog… While FRAPs are fine outside and should be encouraged, don’t reward the behavior inside if it’s a problem for you. – vetstreet.com

But at the dog run, it escalated to a series of quick body slams and a playbite (my arm was in her mouth for a while, no teeth), both of which I could not avoid. Stepping back did not help, she is rather agile. I wasn’t comfortable with where this was going. My discomfort was not unjustified. I later learned from Ruby the Black Labrador that such body slams by bigger dogs have injured people before – “Two people in our park had knee reconstructions though in separate incidents!”

While 15kg Donna did not do any damage to me, a dog twice the weight as Donna could perhaps have injured me with such body slams. It would be even more dangerous if the human involved was a child. So it would be prudent to know how to manage the dog and get him to calm down when he gets too rough.

Luckily, we had been practising with Donna the “stop**” cue, in which all activity must cease and she has to be still. A loud “stop” put an end to it and I had her stay and calm down a bit. No more zoomies after that, she appeared content to just wander around sniffing the grass and staring at the passing dog. Don’t get me wrong, I love to see her running around grinning widely with abandonment, but I do draw the line at body slams and mouthiness***.

On a separate occasion in the same dog run, she ran off her zoomies and eventually plopped on the grass happy, but exhausted.

So any way, now I have a word to use to describe why I like my dog to be able to go leash-free at the beach**** or the dog run. One word – Zoomies. :D

One of my favourite things in life is watching dogs on the beach. Who could not feel happy in the presence of such pure, unbridled joy? – obliozen

Ironically enough, the reason why Donna to this day still has a fear of the Bishan dog run was because of a young dog that had the zoomies and dashed in from the entrance, chasing a golden retriever and both barrelling directly into her. That’s the reason why we only visit this smaller dog run that usually has no dogs in it :D *continues to pray nobody else comes and use it… selfish, I know!*

Naggy notes for those asterisks!

* I sometimes wondered if I had taken it too far, because for a while all she did was lie around. Call it totally zen or totally lazy :P In fact, when she decided that it was too difficult to learn something new, she will just flop on her side and expect the treat to be doled out to her (she used to get more free treats for being calm and lying around, you see. )

** Definitely progress compared to the first home-stay where “stop” yielded zero response. We practise Stop everyday during our walks. When she hears stop, she is supposed to stop all motion immediately. Comes in handy when we need to stop and wait to cross the road, or to let somebody else pass first, or in the case of this post, where a time-out is necessary.

*** Considering the fact that (1) Donna has little dog friends, (2) we do meet children who ask to meet and pet her, and (3) we would also like to have children on our own, these are behaviours that may hurt little dogs and scare children that we do not want to encourage.

**** While I habitually incriminate myself on this blog, I do feel responsible to remind readers to please follow leash laws in your country at your own discretion. I am not responsible or accountable for your own personal actions or conduct. Our dog goes leash-free on occasion only when we are in a situation where we are able to manage our dog to not cause unnecessary trouble or inconvenience to others. This means:
(1) we go to places that are NOT frequented by many dogs/humans
(2) she responds to Stop and so does NOT rush over to approach strange dogs
(3) she is being trained on recall and off-leash heel (not proofed)
(3) She is in general Not aggressive towards other dogs and humans, including children.
(5) She is in general Not a DINOS (dogs in need of space)
(6) She is ALWAYS supervised 

References
As zoomies is a new topic for me and I am, of course, the dog idiot, the following are some of the articles I have referenced. I am more than happy if you have feedback e.g. think certain points I have presented are wrong or misleading that you feel need to be corrected, etc. Thank you :)

• Why does my dog race through my house? – vetstreet.com
• Frenetic Random Activity Periods: otherwise known as Dog Zoomies
• How other dogs react to zoomies