Hi everyone.  I am a long time GSP owner with a little problem.  I have a GSP that is a little over a year old now.  She is about the most perfect looking dog I've ever seen but she is beyond hyper.  She has great hunting instincts and I think with a little training and discipline she would show very nicely also but I'm hardly an expert on the subject.  She lives in the house (sleeps in the bed) and my intentions are to hunt her next year.

My problem is the dog is driving everyone in the house nuts and my wife feels that having her spayed will calm her down.  I'm afraid that having her spayed may do nothing for her hyperness and then I'll be left with a possible champion that I can't breed and she will still drive everyone nuts. 

I have tried every method of calming her down that I can come up with from pheromone plugins to just plain running her for hours and nothing seems to work.  Any advice would be much appreciated.

I think your best bet may be her just getting older, but even then she may be hell on wheels until positively geriatric.

Too bad you're not closer or I'd be more than happy to throw the maniac in my team for a test spin.

Thanks for the reply Meg.

I saw the pic of "your team" and that is just what my hyper little terror needs.  I never even thought of using GSP's in that fashion however my last GSP could take my kids on a sled from 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds

Check out http://thedirtlife.com/dogs/pulling/pulling.htm for some accumulated beginner-ish info on mushing.

Just did a 5 mile hill climb and back down last night in the dark. Here's to headlamps! It was 47F and 90% humidity so it wasn't the fastest time we ever pulled, but the dogs are doing well and getting REALLY hard. Seriously jonsing for snow....

  Thanks Diamond, I have a wonderful bike trail at the back of my property and I may have to give it a try.  Lots of practice and training will have to come first but there's no doubt in my mind that she will pull.

  Excellent site Meg!  Superpuppy jumping off the bed is too funny. 

  I have owned several GSP's and I know they are a very active dog.  My little Pooner just exceeds any activity level that I have seen thus far.  I'll take her out in the woods for a hike.  If I walk 5 miles I figure she runs 100 miles.  We get home and she runs straight for the toy box and she's ready to play.  Maybe I'm just getting old.

  Kind of off the subject but has anyone ever heard of this before?  Pooner has pointed since we brought her home and that's a good thing but...  We started to think there was something seriously wrong with her.  As a very small pup she would go on point and hold it.  After a minute or so her eyes would roll back in her head and she would pass out.  It would only last for a few seconds but after she did this a couple of times I took her to the vet.  They ran all sorts of tests but they couldn't find anything wrong with her.  We watched her very closely at home and we finally figured out what was happening.  When she went on point she would hold her breath until she passed out.  How's that for commitment!  This lasted until she was about 6 months old but I'm happy to report that she can now point and inhale and exhale all at the same time.  Hey, I said she was a good looking dog but I never said she was smart.

LOLOLOL.... FWIW she sounds a whole lot like that 'superpuppy'. Anya does ADD laps out in her kennel most of the day, and if you let her out in the yard she's running at high speed up and down the 100' back fence line. She's worn a bare dirt path out there. Anya actually ran so much in her kennel that she gave herself somewhat chronic stress diarrhea until I started adding physillium to her dish every night.

And I can't figure out if she just can't pay attention long enough to learn without a gazillion repetitions... or if she really IS simply dumber than a sack of hammers....

She's an absolutely sweet little dog, but holy crapoly you DO NOT want her in your house unsupervised!!!

I have two female GSPs, one is spayed and the other is not.  They are both high energy.  That is a trait of the breed.  I have two suggestions: 1) give her a job and 2) lot's of exercise.

My girls have several jobs, but the one I focus on is obedience.  I train them both on obedience daily, and most days several times a day.  I don't mean to suggest you train her for long periods, but work her on one or two exercises (sits, comes, downs, stays, etc) for 10 - 15 minute training sessions two or three times a day.  This will give her focus/discipline and also you can put her in a down stay when you need a break.  This will be an ongoing process, but GSPs are smart and she will learn fast.   Just remember you have to be firm and consistent as you are the one in charge not your dog. Other fun things you can do with her to give her focus are things like agility, flyball, hunting, tracking, carting, etc.  You can do just about anything with a GSP and they love it.  Obedience truly does work if you are consistent.  Both of my girls are wonderful when we have company over.  They do not jump on folks (that took some time, consistency and patience), I can put them anywhere in the house on a down or sit stay and they will hold it until I release them.  They do not counter surf or take/play with things that do not belong to them.  They have a toy box overflowing with their toys.  Understand though that when they were young (under a year) I had a chair unstuffed, pillows torn apart for the insides, socks carried away, and in general all kinds interesting behaviors.

The second things is exercise and lots of it.  We run our girls three or four times a day.  This is on top of the normal running they do chasing squirrels.  Remember a good GSP is a tired GSP. 

Finally, they do calm down with age, but the magic age seems to vary.  With my oldest it was 2 years, but with my youngest I am still waiting and she is 2 1/2 (although she is much better than she was at a year).

Hope some of this helps.

Bev and the Pointer Sisters (Belle and Halo)