Last updated: February 2, 2026
This one’s for you if:
- Your dog chews up your valuables, digs up your garden or has some other irritating habit
- Your puppy bites constantly or never settles down
- Exercise somehow only makes your dog MORE hyperactive
- You want to get better at meeting your dog’s needs but don’t know where to start
If any of these apply to you, let me show you one of the tricks we teach in our online dog training academy. It’s called the 3-2-1 Chill Out Routine, and it’s a key ingredient in our signature PEACE framework. It’s made a big difference for a lot of our members:
How it works
The 3-2-1 Chill Out Routine is a three-step plan you can put into action tomorrow morning. It’s a simple way of structuring your dog’s various activities in a way that is designed to:
- Tire them out in a good way
- Prevent that thing where dogs get more amped-up after exercise
- Reduce puppy biting and other “cranky baby” behaviors
- Help dogs settle down and actually sleep
- Keep your dog occupied and therefore out of trouble
This won’t completely solve behavior issues by itself. You’ll need other elements that we’ll talk about later in this post.
But the Chill Out is step one.
It’s the foundation upon which training and behavior modification build. Without this foundation in place, training is harder.
See, your dog has some basic needs: exercise, rest, appropriate outlets for natural dog behavior, mental stimulation, etc. The Chill Out neatly ticks all those boxes. When dogs don’t get these needs met, that’s when problems start – like destructive behavior or hyperactivity.
When exercise makes hyper behavior worse: the sixty-to-zero problem
You know your high-energy dog needs lots of exercise and mental stimulation to be well-behaved. So like the good responsible dog owner you are, you take Sparky out to do something tiring: a long walk, jogging, catching a Frisbee, etc.
But when you get home, Sparky’s even more energetic than he was before you started. Instead of napping, he goes nuts – jumping on the kids or looking for sofa cushions to eviscerate.
What gives?
There’s a missing piece of the exercise/mental stimulation puzzle: proper transitions, or cool-downs, between times of high-energy activity and times of doing nothing.
The cool-down doesn’t get as much coverage as its rugged and charismatic costars, Exercise and Brain Work, but it just might hold the key to getting your dog to chill the eff out.
People tend to exercise their dogs right before moving on to non-dog things: they take the dog for a run in the morning, then get the kids ready for school and leave for work. Take the dog to the dog park after work, then come home and tune out with Netflix.
The dog finds their activity and quality time with their human abruptly over.
Many dogs can handle the sudden switch from exercise mode to rest mode just fine. They go from “sixty to zero” in seconds, no problem. These dogs may be low-energy, or they may be older and more used to the quirks and disappointments of life with humans.
But young, sparky, high-drivey dogs?
Even the most intense workout can leave them revved-up and ready for more. They need to take this energy out on something. These dogs simply are not capable of decelerating so quickly. When forced to do so, they crash and burn.
They need a structured way to come down from the exercise “high” and transition into calmer behavior. So the Chill Out is designed to help your dog switch gears (how much mileage can we get out of these car metaphors?).
If you always feed your dog out of a bowl, you’re missing an opportunity
For Average Joe Dog, the acquisition of food doesn’t take up nearly as much energy as perhaps it should. A wild canid spends a good chunk of its day hunting or scavenging, and pet dogs still have the instincts and drive for it. But compare that to how most of them live now:
Every morning, a bowl of chow descends from the heavens (i.e. the kitchen counter), Sparky mindlessly scarfs it down in five minutes, and then he’s on to a busy day of… nothing much.
Might sound nice to us chronically overworked and overstimulated humans, but for our chronically under-stimulated dogs, this can leave them wanting for something more.
The lowest-effort solution to this dilemma? Puzzle toys. I’ve written a whole thing about this. Click here to read the Beginner’s Guide to Puzzle Toys. Tl;dr: puzzle toys are hollow objects you fill with food. It takes time and effort for your dog to extract the goods.
And hey, there’s an even simpler argument for puzzle toys:
The more time it takes Sparky to eat, the less time he has to get into trouble.
You may already use a Kong-type toy to feed your dog treats. That’s great! But you might want to go one step further and use it to feed him his regular meals. Not every meal, but at least a few a week. Especially on days where you’re busy and can’t spend as much time with Sparky as he really needs.
How to put together your 3-2-1 Chill-Out Routine
3: Exercise and/or exploration
Pick an energetic activity like a long walk, a hike, fetch, etc. The less time you have, the more enriching the activity should be.
What is enrichment? To put it really simply, it’s anything that allows your dog to let their hair down and act like a dog. It’s those “appropriate outlets for natural dog behaviors” that I mentioned earlier.
Ideas and examples:
- On walks, use a long-line (a training leash at least 5m/15ft long) to give Sparky more room to move in a more normal dog-like way, instead of being stuck right next to a slow human.
- On walks, prioritize letting your dog sniff instead of moving quickly
- Finding places they can safely be off-leash
- Finding ways to let them dig, roll around, or follow animal scent trails
- Combine fetch with an epic tug-of-war game
- Encourage your dog to chase you
- If you don’t have a lot of space, play with a flirt-pole instead of fetch
- Set up a line of jumps for your agility trainee and run him back and forth
See also: 12 Ways To Exercise Your Dog Without Walking Them
2: Interactive brain games
We’re taking the energy level down a notch here. Switching from the excitement of the previous activity to something that requires focus. Play a training game like hide-and-seek, or practice whatever training project you’re working on at the moment. If you’re not working on any specific project, pick any reward-based training project that looks interesting.
The value in training goes way beyond just the “end goal” of a Sit, Lie Down, Play Dead, or whatever. The value is in the training itself. It’s one of the easiest ways to tire a dog out in a good way. Especially if Sparky is a puppy – thinking is exhausting for puppies.
Reward based training is also a good way to build your relationship; Sparky learns that you’re fun, safe, and you provide good things. See: Does Food-Based Training Get in the Way of Creating a Real Bond with Your Dog?
1: Breakfast in puzzle toys
Prerequisite: The whole “earn your breakfast by figuring out how to extract it from this weird little container” thing takes getting used to. A dog who has eaten from a bowl her whole life won’t have the patience for this at first. Read the puzzle toy guide to learn how to teach your dog this concept.
This is how you transition the dog from interaction and play mode to rest mode. Just pack Sparky’s food into your puzzle toy of choice, and then give to her to work on alone while you go about your day.
You can start easy, with one large Kong filled with an entire meal, and then make things harder as Sparky becomes a puzzle toy pro. On days where you can’t spend much time with your dog, the more challenging breakfast is, the better. More challenging means it takes Sparky more time to eat, which means less time spent barking, chewing up the furniture, or staring at you hopefully while you try to write a blog post (geez, Merlin. I’m almost finished. Five more minutes).
Ways to make things more challenging:
- Divide the meal into several toys and hide them around a dog-proofed room
- Freeze the food toy to make it last longer. Mix the dry food with something that will freeze, like canned food or cottage cheese. Put the mixture into a Kong/Toppl-type toy and freeze it overnight.
Tips for an effective routine (and mistakes to watch out for)
Give it a try and adjust things as needed
The 3-2-1 Chill Out Routine is versatile and there are many ways to make it work. You probably won’t get the routine exactly right on your first attempt. You’ll have to do some experimenting to figure out what’s best for you and your dog.
For instance, some dogs need a ton of intense exercise and less brain work, and some dogs thrive on a bit of exercise and an hour of training and brain games. And for the final calming solo activity, some dogs prefer chewing on bully sticks or pig ears instead of eating breakfast out of a toy.
The most effective activities combine exercise AND mental stimulation
This is one of the reasons we encourage our members to think exploration, not just exercise. It combines a physical workout with multiple other sources of enrichment, resulting in a happier and more relaxed dog. Being a dog is about things like sniffing and following scent trails, digging, meeting up with friends, playing in water, investigating interesting things, rolling in dead things, etc.
(Okay, you don’t have to let them roll in dead things EVERY time, I guess)
See: Do you really have to be the gatekeeper of all good things to get your dog to listen?
The details are flexible. The critical part is following the core principle:
Cool-downs after exercise, always. A “workout” followed by a less intense activity that engages the dog’s brain, followed by an acceptable solo activity (puzzle or chew toys).
FAQ
Do I have to do this in the morning?
Nope. It’s good to do it in the morning because that way Sparky will be chiller during the day when you’re busy doing human things. But if you don’t have time in the morning, you can do it whenever.
How long should I spend on exercise and brain work?
Depends on two factors: how much time you have, and how much time Sparky needs. As a starting point, try thirty minutes for exercise, followed by fifteen minutes for brain training (although your teenage pit bull or herding breed might laugh at the idea of a measly 45 minutes of activities).
If you don’t have enough time in the morning, maybe take five minutes to throw a tennis ball, ten minutes for trick-training, and then rely on an assortment of puzzle toys to keep her busy. Then do a longer version of the routine in the evening when you have more time.
Common mistakes people make with this routine
Overdoing physical exercise (especially with puppies)
You sometimes see people exercise their puppy for so long that they start getting overtired, which causes biting.
Something we hear from a lot of new members: their puppy bites them on walks. Okay, so when does the biting start on the walk? In most cases, it’s not right away. A student I was talking to recently told me it pretty consistently starts at the 30-minute mark for their pup.
Okay great, good to know. So now you walk them for 20 minutes. The biting indicates they are getting overstimulated or overtired.
Focusing only on exercise and not exploration for the “3” activity
So like, going for a run or playing a million reps of fetch. Those things can be great, as long as they’re not the only type of enrichment you do. Without enough outlets for normal dog hobbies, you just end up with a tired, cranky dog.
And if you have a puppy, exploration is critical for their development. The kids need to have frequent new experiences and learn about the world while they’re young and impressionable. This is part of the process of socialization, aka the most important element within your control in raising a well-adjusted dog. Way more important than obedience training, even. We’ll teach you exactly how to do that in Puppy Survival School.
Not letting your dog get the hang of puzzle toys before you use it for the “1” activity
Dogs will often give up on these toys if they can’t quickly figure out how they work. So you gotta take some time to get them accustomed to it at an easy level before you add any degree of challenge.
Over-relying on this type of routine without incorporating these other elements
If a happy, well-adjusted, attentive dog (or a less-bitey puppy) is your goal, you’ll want to combine this routine with the rest of the PEACE framework:
Prevent the chaos
Set up your dog’s environment in a way that prevents bad habits from developing (or at least prevents them from getting worse) and teaches good habits. So you don’t have to be The Person Who Says No all the time. Constant corrections create more tension and get in the way of bonding.
Enrich their life
A “tired dog is a good dog?” Ha! Sometimes exercise just makes dogs more energetic, as you’ve probably noticed. But a fulfilled dog is a chill dog.
This is where the Chill Out lives, btw. It’s usually the first thing we have new students implement on their journey to enrichment enlightenment.
Acknowledge the good
Despite how it may feel, your dog is actually doing a lot of things right. You just haven’t been taught what to look for. When you know how to reinforce and build on the tiny moments of good, you can establish really strong good habits without doing a ton of formal training all day. Work smarter, not harder.
Communicate clearly
Because a big ingredient in most of the problems you’ll experience with your dog is this: they don’t understand what the hell you want, and they don’t know how the hell to tell you what they want. So you gotta incorporate solid dog training principles (not obedience commands) into your life and teach your dog polite ways to ask for what they need.
Empathy first
I don’t (just) mean empathy in a warm and fuzzy sense, but as an actual strategy. When you know how to see things from your dog’s perspective, a lot of this dog training stuff gets way more intuitive.
We have a bunch of frameworks, exercises, and support in the Academy to show you exactly how to do all this. Scroll down below the squiggly blue line for the details.
