# Zoomies - what does your dog do?



## sbonnett76 (Apr 6, 2010)

I first heard about "zoomies" when we got Roxy and wondered what on earth they were! After a little while, whilst on a walk, Roxy suddenly went nuts! She was going from 0-60 in a few seconds, spinning around, running over to us at full pelt and generally looking like she was have a mad 5 minutes. Over time, I even learnt to stand behind my husband or a tree because sometimes she wouldn't think to go around me, but would simply go straight through me!

Once she's exhausted herself, she'll trot off (panting!) often stopping to snack on grass!

Firstly, is that the zoomies or am I about to find out that my dog has some serious training issue and secondly, what zoomies does your dog have?


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## Sarah1983 (Nov 2, 2011)

Sounds like typical zoomies to me


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## BoredomBusters (Dec 8, 2011)

Yes it sounds like the zoomies. I put it down to adrenalin due to overtiredness or too much exercise. I normally recommend to my clients if their puppies do this they make the next walk a bit shorter.


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## tattoogirl73 (Jun 25, 2011)

wait till she has a mad zoomie session in the house


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## IrishEyes (Jun 26, 2012)

Definitely zoomies! Horace is a big strong fellow so when he has the zoomies I tend to keep my wits about me as it hurts.. alot.. when he hits but saying that he has got much better at running around rather than through me! He doesn't tend to zoom around so much anymore now that he is having good long walks, they tend to only happen if for some reason his walk the previous day is a bit shorter.


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## IrishEyes (Jun 26, 2012)

tattoogirl73 said:


> wait till she has a mad zoomie session in the house


Bubble wrap everything!!


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## hazel pritchard (Jun 28, 2009)

I love to watch my dogs have zoomies while out over the fields, i stand there watching them , and no matter what i am feeling it always makes me smile, my Lurcher just gets so excited while having zoomies , i am sure hes smiling while charging about, he is a rescue dog and to see him having zoomies ,to me is magic,


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## paddyjulie (May 9, 2009)

tattoogirl73 said:


> wait till she has a mad zoomie session in the house


:lol: :lol:

A Bull terrier having a mad zoomie in the house = carnage


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## toffee44 (Oct 21, 2011)

Buster pulled phone out socket, knocked down shoe rack and a bookshelf doing zoomies in the house He gets zoomies at inappropriate times!


Zoomies is just pure excitement I think. Dylan gets it as soon as I let him off and say "go on then" he looks like whippet.

Teal doesnt really get zoomies but regulary wags his tails so hard I fear it might fall off or his hips will fall apart


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## Lavenderb (Jan 27, 2009)

paddyjulie said:


> :lol: :lol:
> 
> A Bull terrier having a mad zoomie in the house = carnage


So does a shih tzu lol....she goes flying across the sofa, doesn't care who is sitting on it. You just see a blur of white fur and this funny growling grunting noise she makes ...out to the kitchen, skids on the floor back into lounge, across sofa again :lol:


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## Guest (Mar 9, 2013)

McKenzie usually does zoomies with dogs that don't want to play with her :lol: She puts her tail between her legs, ears back, and runs in huge circles around them :lol: Usually they just stand there looking bemused :lol:

This is her as a puppy doing zoomies in the mud  (from about 1:00)

[youtube_browser]B2jwgeW_uM4[/youtube_browser]


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## Dogless (Feb 26, 2010)

Kilo gets them every single time he goes off a path and under the trees in the forest (moss) or we walk on mossy bog - moss is guaranteed to set them off. Sand is too. In fact he gets them on most walks, especially if it's windy. Runs full speed usually in circles, sometimes up and down as he has a game where he'll suddenly stop and I'll say "What are you doing?" and he'll start again, full pelt. Sometimes he growls, sometimes not. His front and back end look as they're going in different directions as he does a funny side-to-side thing too.

Rudi does the same, but the clumsy, puppy version!

I love seeing them - they always look like sheer joy to me, although it's interesting what Boredom Busters says. I'm not sure what I'd do as they often have them straight off the bat on walks though.


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## IrishEyes (Jun 26, 2012)

Dogless said:


> Kilo gets them every single time he goes off a path and under the trees in the forest (moss) or we walk on mossy bog - moss is guaranteed to set them off. Sand is too. In fact he gets them on most walks, especially if it's windy. Runs full speed usually in circles, sometimes up and down as he has a game where he'll suddenly stop and I'll say "What are you doing?" and he'll start again, full pelt. Sometimes he growls, sometimes not. His front and back end look as they're going in different directions as he does a funny side-to-side thing too.
> 
> Rudi does the same, but the clumsy, puppy version!
> 
> I love seeing them - they always look like sheer joy to me, although it's interesting what Boredom Busters says. I'm not sure what I'd do as they often have them straight off the bat on walks though.


I always enjoy seeing Horace zoom around, he seems to be having a blast but a few people said that zoomies are a sign that the dog is mentally imbalanced in some way. My argument that it's just good fun and mighty fine exercise don't wash.. I asked a dog trainer what he thought, he'd never heard of it as being something of an imbalance and said that as your dogs get older the zoomies decrease so you should enjoy watching them whilst they last.
They are I think just a natural part of dog behaviour, certainly nothing wrong or we'd have an awful lot od unbalanced dog's running about!

Horace tends to get zoomies in woodland also, how he hasn't managed to knock himself out on a tree yet I'll never know!

Dogless, a video of your two zooming around mould be nice I think!


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## BoredomBusters (Dec 8, 2011)

Dogless said:


> I love seeing them - they always look like sheer joy to me, although it's interesting what Boredom Busters says. I'm not sure what I'd do as they often have them straight off the bat on walks though.


It's only a theory! Fred will get them sometimes as well, I put that down to his bad hips and wanting the endorphins for the pain. But the other three don't get them, and Tinker never did that I remember, he's the only one I've had from a puppy.

Perhaps if they do it a lot when a youngers it becomes a learned behaviour and they just enjoy it? I work with a lot of puppies and don't see so many 'grow up' as I used to. But all the clients I recommend shorter walks and more sleep to report the zoomies die down or die out...


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## Sarah1983 (Nov 2, 2011)

Spencer often gets zoomies when he's had a poo. Long grass and rain trigger them too as does snow. 

I don't think they're necessarily over tiredness. Some of Spens I put down to stress relief as they happen when he's been faced with something he's really unsure about. Some seem to be pure joy. How much exercise he's had doesn't seem to matter, it seems more an arousal thing. If he's excited or stressed he zoomies.


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## sbonnett76 (Apr 6, 2010)

hazel pritchard said:


> I love to watch my dogs have zoomies while out over the fields, i stand there watching them , and no matter what i am feeling it always makes me smile, my Lurcher just gets so excited while having zoomies , i am sure hes smiling while charging about, he is a rescue dog and to see him having zoomies ,to me is magic,


Roxy is also a rescue and I feel exactly the same. In my brain she's running around acting like a loon because she's so happy with her new(ish) life!


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## sbonnett76 (Apr 6, 2010)

McKenzie said:


> McKenzie usually does zoomies with dogs that don't want to play with her :lol: She puts her tail between her legs, ears back, and runs in huge circles around them :lol: Usually they just stand there looking bemused :lol:
> 
> This is her as a puppy doing zoomies in the mud  (from about 1:00)
> 
> [youtube_browser]B2jwgeW_uM4[/youtube_browser]


That's hilarious and just what Roxy does, except she's about 5 times the size!


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## Dogless (Feb 26, 2010)

IrishEyes said:


> Dogless, a video of your two zooming around mould be nice I think!


I had one and Photobucket seemed to delete it - I'll see if it's still on my laptop.



BoredomBusters said:


> It's only a theory! Fred will get them sometimes as well, I put that down to his bad hips and wanting the endorphins for the pain. But the other three don't get them, and Tinker never did that I remember, he's the only one I've had from a puppy.
> 
> Perhaps if they do it a lot when a youngers it becomes a learned behaviour and they just enjoy it? I work with a lot of puppies and don't see so many 'grow up' as I used to. But all the clients I recommend shorter walks and more sleep to report the zoomies die down or die out...


It's an interesting theory; I wasn't knocking you in any way.



Sarah1983 said:


> Spencer often gets zoomies when he's had a poo. Long grass and rain trigger them too as does snow.
> 
> I don't think they're necessarily over tiredness. Some of Spens I put down to stress relief as they happen when he's been faced with something he's really unsure about. Some seem to be pure joy. How much exercise he's had doesn't seem to matter, it seems more an arousal thing. If he's excited or stressed he zoomies.


Kilo will have them after a poo too and what you say about being unsure is also true here. Same as jumping at me when onlead if he's stressed / confused / unsure.


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## sbonnett76 (Apr 6, 2010)

Dogless said:


> I had one and Photobucket seemed to delete it - I'll see if it's still on my laptop.
> 
> It's an interesting theory; I wasn't knocking you in any way.
> 
> Kilo will have them after a poo too and what you say about being unsure is also true here. Same as jumping at me when onlead if he's stressed / confused / unsure.


I wondered if they had anything to do with a scent in a particular area. Roxy has two separate spots on a particular walk where she'll have them although it's not every time. We were down in Devon a few weeks ago and she broke out a massive zoomie attack walking through a field (that she'd never been through before) and did the same on the way back and the following day in exactly the same place.

I don't know if it's relevant, but we hadn't had our best walk before her zoomies yesterday. Nothing major happened, she had just seemed to forget who I was so I was quite surprised when she had a zoomie attack on our way home as we weren't the best of friends at the time!


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## Tamsin W (Sep 18, 2012)

I think there's all manner of things that can cause them - Buttons seems to have frustration-based zoomies quite often (usually when something he's stolen has been removed, or if I ask him to come inside from the garden and he doesn't want to). 

The other common reason in our house seems to be over-stimulation /excitement - usually happens on walks, and when there's just SO MUCH GOING ON WHAT TO SNIFF WHICH DOG TO PLAY WITH OH GOD ZOOMZOOMZOOM. 

They basically involve running around at full pelt like a lunatic while running through entire repertoire of all the noises he knows how to make (grunting his particular favourite!).


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## catz4m8z (Aug 27, 2008)

my lot tend to have their zoomies in the evening through the house! Luckily the doorways in my house line up from front to back so they can literally run from one end to the other, usually indulging in abit of bed surfing at the end as their mattress goes flying across the laminate when they jump on it!!
Ive always thought of it like doggy play time. Kinda like when you're a kid and you jump in leaf piles and puddles just for the hell of it!:thumbup:


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## Barcode (Mar 7, 2011)

Welcome to the club. This is quite normal zooming behavior:

25 January 2012 21:39 - YouTube

A year later, she still thinks she is parkour dog - she does a particularly good routine of leaping from stairs - landing on armchair - forward roll onto floor - zoom into garden with toy - do a flying leap at whoever is sitting on the sofa - and then, sleep.


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## tattoogirl73 (Jun 25, 2011)

paddyjulie said:


> :lol: :lol:
> 
> A Bull terrier having a mad zoomie in the house = carnage


same as a dobermann then  though when tricky gets going she doesn't do too bad. because she's so small she can do zoomies in places opie can't get to so ends up causing more chaos, like jumping up under the stool we use as a coffee table :mad2:


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## CheddarS (Dec 13, 2011)

paddyjulie said:


> :lol: :lol:
> 
> A Bull terrier having a mad zoomie in the house = carnage


Well my Weimie does it in the house and it is chaos...furniture and rugs slid all around. But so funny


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## ballybee (Aug 25, 2010)

Lol zombies are brilliant!!!

Tummels guaranteed zoomy starter is rain and wind and the golf course, he goes mental on the golf course :biggrin: he usually just runs around like a loony then rolls about like mad...when he's knackered he'll trot about then fling himself to the ground for a roll 

Dan doesn't really do zoomies, but when he does its hilarious, he just runs about looking really delighted and a bit confused :001_huh:

Deeks goes absolutely nuts, starts flinging himself about, rolling everywhere then catapulting off at full speed, then accidentally on purpose trips and rolls again :thumbup1:


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## Big Guy (Oct 9, 2011)

Deco's "zoomy" triggers are:

Woohoo I just had a poo!
Its so windy, I have to run with it
I've just had a bath, so this is my version of spin drying​
Lovely to see him run, though wasn't as funny during the teenage phase when on lead  70KG dog having zoomies in the snow on lead - its fair to say I made a good brake (and an odd looking snow angel )


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## Tamsin W (Sep 18, 2012)

Big Guy said:


> Deco's "zoomy" triggers are:
> 
> Woohoo I just had a poo!
> Its so windy, I have to run with it
> ...


I forgot about the post-bath spin-dry zoomies!

We get this too - he's completely calm for the duration of bathtime, calm for approximately two minutes following bathtime, then out of nowhere lunatic zoomies all over the house for the next half hour while I futilely try to catch him for a blow dry.


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## Gick (Jan 25, 2013)

New Girl Nala was very timid when I re-homed her in January and showed signs of having been beaten. For the first few days, each time I moved my feet on the foot-stool she would flinch. After a little time she realized that she was not going to be hurt and began to relax so that I could stroke her. She quickly became very affectionate and loves being stroked by anyone.

However, if you turned it into even the lightest pat, she would pull away.

To desensitize her, I would have a cuddle moment and lightly tap my finger tips whilst stroking, easing off the tapping if she started pulling away, but still stroking, allowing her to settle before light tapping again and so on.

After doing this regularly, she accepts patting as a precursor to play and will now bow after a couple of pats before doing her zoomies up and down the lounge, going to her day bed and grabbing the towel before zooming back. She will do this several time, nipping the bed each time until it is piled up into a total mess. I have to steady the occasional table to avoid it going flying! :001_tt1:


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## Mese (Jun 5, 2008)

I first read the title as zombies - what does your dog do ? 
I was wondering when the apocalypse happened and why I hadnt heard about it 

As for zoomies , Toff and Teddy dont really do zoomies (except after bath-time) , Gypsy on the other hand is nuts , any area bigger than 5 feet and she will charge around like a nutter , once , which I caught on video and had me in hysterics , she was legging around the garden and ended up going around and around a football in tight circles , daft girl but she does love running 

This vid shows the football zoomie , lol

http://www.petforums.co.uk/dog-photo-galleries/148343-too-much-energy.html


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## thronesfan (Jun 20, 2012)

this is Cookie having mini zoomies in the snow -

Snow in the garden - YouTube

She quite often does a jumping lamb impression as well. She has post-bath zoomies too, and new toy zoomies. Earlier she had "omg, I found a scabby old tennis ball in the garden" zoomies - I've confiscated most of her toys until she has her stitches out on Friday, but she can always find something to go nuts with...


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