Dog can't rest: How much rest & activity does my dog need? [Part 1]

Many dogs do not need more action; they need more rest. That sounds almost obvious, but for us it is one of the most important principles in behavior work. In our practice, we see dogs every day who are described as “fidgety,” “not getting enough enrichment and exercise,” or “impossible to tire out” — and in almost every case, the opposite is the problem. These dogs are not doing too little. They are chronically overstimulated.

In this first part of our three-part series, we clarify the basics: How much sleep does a dog really need? What counts as activity — and what does not? And how can we recognize that the balance has shifted? In the second part, we look at what happens inside a dog’s body when rest is lacking long term. In the third part, we sort through the specific causes and triggers. Here, we start with the question we are asked most often: How much is actually “normal”?

How much sleep a dog actually needs

Probably the most persistent misconception in everyday life with dogs is the figure “twelve hours.” It appears again and again in guides, forums, and conversations among dog owners — and it is set far too low. In their work on the sleep-wake cycles of adult dogs, Adams and Johnson documented resting phases that take up a large part of the 24-hour day. Later behavioral observations, including those by Owczarczak-Garstecka and colleagues on daily activity patterns, support this picture: Adult dogs spend the majority of their day resting, dozing, or sleeping.

In our work, we calculate around 17 to 20 hours of rest per day for adult, healthy dogs. This is not laziness; it is the biological norm. If you have a dog who rests this much every day, you do not have an underchallenged dog — you have a dog whose nervous system is doing exactly what it is meant to do.

Puppies, adolescent dogs, and senior dogs

In puppies and adolescent dogs, the need is even higher. 18 to 20 hours of rest per day are not an exception in this phase, but a prerequisite for healthy development. Growth, linking new stimuli, hormonal maturation — none of this happens in an active state, but during sleep phases. A puppy who rests too little quickly shifts into a state we call “over-tired”: tired, but no longer able to switch off. Paradoxically, these dogs then appear particularly active and are misunderstood as being “full of energy.”

Senior dogs, in turn, often need even more sleep than younger adults. Their bodies regenerate more slowly, stimuli become more demanding to process, and recovery time increases. If you have an older dog who lies down a lot, there is usually no reason to worry — quite the opposite.

What really counts as activity

When we talk to dog owners about enrichment and exercise, almost the same list always comes up: long walks, jogging, cycling, ball games, dog sports, dog encounters, search games. What is rarely mentioned: When in doubt, all of this is the opposite of recovery. For the nervous system, activity means arousal. And arousal has to be reduced again — not through even more stimuli, but through real breaks.

In practice, we roughly distinguish between two categories. On one side are activating activities: fast-paced movement, social contact, new environments, intensive nose work, stimulation games. On the other side are regulating activities: calm chewing, low-threshold search tasks in a familiar environment, quiet observation, familiar routines. Both have their place — but the mix determines whether a dog is able to settle or not.

The 80/20 rule in everyday life

A rule of thumb that has proven useful for us when working with fidgety and overstimulated dogs is a rough 80/20 split: around 80 percent of the day consists of rest, routine, and predictable processes, and around 20 percent consists of structured activity. Structured means: with a clear beginning, a clear end, a clear expectation — and with an honest break afterwards.

For many dog owners, this split initially feels like too little. But in most households, it is already ambitious. If you honestly count how often during the day your dog is activated by noises, visitors, doors, family movement, or attention, you quickly notice: 80 percent genuine rest is not a minimum standard, but a training goal.

Why “not enough to do” is so rarely the real reason

“My dog is underchallenged” — this is one of the most common statements dog owners bring to us. In behavioral observation, a different picture almost always emerges. In a now-classic series of studies in the late 1990s, Beerda and colleagues documented how chronic and acute stress manifests in dogs. What stands out is that many of these signs of stress — increased panting, restlessness, constant responsiveness, a low stimulation threshold, poor ability to switch off — look exactly like “too little enrichment and exercise” in everyday life.

In other words: A dog who constantly appears active, who does not want to miss anything, who becomes alert at every sound, and who does not become calmer after activity but even more wound up, is usually not understimulated. He is overstimulated. More enrichment and exercise intensify the picture instead of resolving it. More rest, built up properly, is the real answer.

In his work on the mental well-being of dogs, McMillan describes how closely well-being is linked to the ability to lower arousal back to a baseline level. Without this return to calm, there is no stable well-being — no matter how much the dog “experiences” during the day.

Enrichment and exercise must match the level of arousal

For us, the decisive point is not “a lot or a little,” but “appropriate or inappropriate.” Enrichment and exercise are not an end in themselves. They should help the individual dog, in his individual daily state, regulate arousal — not push it higher.

A calm, already balanced dog can benefit from moderate activity: a walk in a familiar environment, a small search task, a few minutes of training. A fidgety, easily stimulated dog needs the opposite. He needs fewer stimuli, more predictability, clearly limited activity windows, and above all much more undisturbed rest. If you offer an overstimulated dog a second group dog walk, a visit to a dog park, or a new training game, you mean well — but you reinforce the problem.

Restricted breed dogs and muscular breeds with drive

We work a great deal with so-called restricted breed dogs and with muscular breeds that bring a strong need for movement and prey-related motivation. It is precisely with these dogs that the question of enrichment and exercise is asked incorrectly particularly often. The obvious assumption is: lots of muscle, lots of drive, therefore lots of activity. In practice, this rarely works.

What these dogs need is not constant activation, but structure. Clear breaks. Clear expectations. Clear transitions between activity and rest. A dog with a high potential for arousal benefits especially from not having “something happening” all the time, but from activity windows being set deliberately and ended deliberately. This is exactly where we see the greatest progress — not through more movement, but through clean framing.

Vito and Amalia — how we handle it ourselves

For both of our dogs, rest training is a central pillar of their stability. Vito is a muscular dog with a high interest in stimuli, and Amalia has her own arousal structure, which we respect every day. We have taught both of them that a break does not mean “nothing is happening right now,” but that a break is its own safe state — with a fixed position, a predictable sequence, and without constant interaction.

In everyday life, this has changed more than any training session on obedience or cue reliability. Both dogs respond in a more balanced way because they know that every activity is followed by a real resting phase. In doing so, we give them something that we first have to teach many of our client dogs: the permission and the ability to wind down.

Our Vitomalia conclusion

When a dog cannot settle, the first question for us is not “What should we do more of?”, but “What should we leave out?”. Biologically speaking, adult dogs rest 17 to 20 hours a day. Puppies more, and senior dogs often as well. If you interpret that as laziness, you misunderstand what the dog’s body is actually doing while he is lying down.

Enrichment and exercise are only useful when they match the dog’s level of arousal. For fidgety dogs, this usually means less action and more structure, not the other way around. The 80/20 rule is not a dogma for us, but it is a good anchor: plenty of rest, with little but deliberate activity. If you establish this framework properly, you create the foundation on which everything else — training, bond, behavior — can become stable in the first place.

In the second part of this series, we will look at what happens inside the dog’s body when this balance shifts long term. In the third part, we will sort through the specific causes and triggers that pull dogs out of calm.