Adolescent puppy driving me to distraction!

[Opoly54]

I just need to vent. Currently lying in bed listening to him whining and scratching at his bedroom door. Nothing wrong with him other than not wanting to go to bed. Every day is something:

-jumping up on the windowsill
-ignoring recall
-pulling to meet and great anyone and everyone on walks
-chasing birds, leaves, flies
-begging for food during our meal times
-cocking his leg on my washing drying on the line
-pestering the cats to play with him
-digging up my plants
-stealing dirty pants out of the laundry basket
-eating pegs
-humping us

I think that’s it-for now! Lucky he’s so damn cute and we all love him, he is pushing my patience to the limit though.

9 months old. Dear god I hope we come out the other side of this with a lovely adult dog! (He does get plenty of exercise, training and mental stimulation-not that you’d think it!)

[heatseeker14]

We are in the same boat over here @Opoly54. Our pup is nearly 10 months old and still on a long line. We get comments about this all the time from other dog walkers. I can see improvements: not jumping up at the faces of other dogs and recalled from chasing a rabbit. On the downside he seems to think all humans will give him treats if we happen to chat to someone. He will try to jump up to get to their pockets/treat bag. 😳
He has learnt to collapse flat on the ground when he sees another dog in the hope they might come over and say hello. I can’t call him away when he is doing this so end up pulling him away, not good. Can’t see him ever getting off of the long lead at this rate...
Our boy enjoyed raiding my freshly planted pots. I’ve pushed some stones around the base of the plants and he has left them alone. Think the lure of soft soil was too much for him!

[Opoly54]

I’ve only got 2 walks now that I can take him off lead on-one is a forest, I’ve never seen another person in it, there’s no livestock anywhere and for some reason he always stays reasonably close.

The other is a field by our house, we can walk around the edge of it and he loves chasing stones so he comes back to us for that.

If there’s any other dogs around, he’s off like a rocket wanting to play. He’s at his worst in large open areas, he’ll just take off. On narrow paths he’s ok, will greet the dog, have a little play and then follow us but I get anxious if I see another dog on lead I just don’t trust him to recall so I keep him on.

He’s really asserting himself at home, particularly with DS 12. He’s always seen him as a puppy playmate and has growled a few times at him. He seems to be getting a bit protective towards DH.

I feel like one bad behaviour stops and then another starts. This weeks he’s stopped whining if we go upstairs and leave him downstairs alone but then we had the antics of last night. He did stop eventually-I think it took about 30mins before he realised we weren’t giving in!

I’m never ever getting a puppy again!

[midnightstar66]

Oh god mines only 12 weeks. She's been pretty good so far but is definitely growly with dd7 more than myself or dd10. She also growls and snaps if we move her when she's sitting on us and whines a lot for a lot of reasons lol. She won't sleep unless someone is sitting down with her so follows you around getting increasingly over tired hanging off ankles and the likes. Sounds like we've got a long slog ahead 🙈

[Opoly54]

I found the first 2 months really difficult then we had a few months of things feeling a bit easier and now it’s all gone to shit again!

[heatseeker14]

Our dog sometimes pushes his luck with my boys or DH and gets a bit nippy. I’ve had to step in to tell him to stop it because he doesn’t listen to them. He stops straight away if I tell him not to do it.
He has started to leave the cat alone more. That’s been a recent improvement.
I love our dog to bits but would never get another puppy in the future! 😂

[midnightstar66]

I didn't actually realise they had a second and worse stage as teenagers . The only other dog I've had from a pup was our family dog and that didn't happen but she's a Bassett hound and totally different temperament to my live wire little terrier - fun times ahead, lucky we adore her!

[BiteyShark]

I didn't actually realise they had a second and worse stage as teenagers

Yes the teenage phase can be long and tiring. Have lots of from me .

The good news is that when they eventually do start to listen to you again you finally get to see the faithful adult dog

For me it started to go wrong at 6 months of age. 8-9 months was absolutely shit and it's very obvious why lots are rehomed between 1-2 years of age. It got better around the age of 1, even better aged 2 and now mine is a lovely adult who is 4 this year and occasionally have a cheeky moment just to let me know he is still the boss young at heart.

[heatseeker14]

@midnightstar66, the teenage stage isn’t as hard as the puppy stage IMO. I found that stage really tiring getting up in the night to take him to the toilet and persistent nipping. Now he just tests the boundaries! Some of the naughtiness is just excitement. He always goes to nip when we start to play a game. It’s like he just can’t contain the excitement. We are working on recall every day. This has improved a lot which is encouraging.

[GeraltOfRivia]

Hey. Found you on your thread! Our 13 month old Dalmatian is very te sting at the moment. I've decided to start from scratch with recall and are in the first stage of the total recall book.

He's just a an over enthusiastic lump with no filter. He is improving though so I can see hope in our future. The two big sticking points are food theft and recall. But we're working on both those proactively.

[midnightstar66]

@heatseeker14 thankfully ours sleeps all night and has a lazy start in the morning but she is VERY bitey and the though of that for another several months doesn't fill me with joy 😆. Recall and lead walking really good for her age but now prepared for that to all go to pot in a couple of months lol

[midnightstar66]

The good news is that when they eventually do start to listen to you again you finally get to see the faithful adult dog

Both parents have pretty exemplary behaviour so I'm holding out hope for this haha

[vanillandhoney]

Ah yes, the teenage years! Mine had me in tears multiple times when he was a teenager, he was an absolute nightmare

But he's two now and so, so much calmer. He still has the odd moment of daftness but overall he's fine and we even get compliments on his behaviour!

[pigsDOfly]

He will get through it and out the other side, and so will you. Just keep plugging away at the training.

I read something on one of my news feeds recently that said that Nottingham, Newcastle and Edinburgh universities had combined to do research on adolescent dog and had 'discovered' that dogs go through a difficult adolescent stage similar to human teenagers.

Had to laugh. What a ridiculous waste of time and money.

Absolutely anyone who has every had a teenage dog could have told them that for nothing. It really doesn't need researching.

Teenage dogs can be a nightmare but it does end, thankfully quicker than human adolescence.

[muckandnettles]

My pup is only 10 weeks, so I'm reading this with interest. So far he has been pretty keen to learn as long as I catch him at the right time, so we are getting somewhere with sit, down, come - early stages. Just out of interest, have any of you tried clicker training with any success? I'm considering it but don't know if I'm coordinated enough to manage treats, clicker, lead, etc without just getting in a muddle! I'm determined he will be well behaved as my last dog was a bit of a nightmare (still miss the old fool though).

[pigsDOfly]

I tried clicker training, as the woman who took the training classes I went to was very keen on it.

However, I just couldn't get to grips with it.

You have to time the clicking and the treating so it's done immediately and I found it made training a bit stressful for me; as you say, you're trying to juggle the clicker, treats and so on and my coordination is not what it could be.

I found it easier to just use my voice, which worked out absolutely fine.

My dog's training is fine and her recall has always been exceptional, except during adolescence, of course, when she became a beast with recall and was on a long training line for months.

Once we got through that though she turned into an absolute joy, eventually.

[totallydevoidofideas]

@pigsDOfly thank you for your response. I'm not the most well coordinated person and I can just imagine making a complete idiot of myself over on the fields and chucking stuff all over the place by mistake. As you say, it's also the timing and getting that spot on. I just thought it might be useful for other members of the family to be able to have a clicker as the pup so far responds to me the most. Not boasting about that, btw, it's just that I've been with him pretty much 24/7 since he arrived, so he had better be taking notice!

I appreciate the good news that they come through it all right in the end. So far pup has been 90% lovely and affectionate but you know what that other 10% is like, I'm sure!

[pigsDOfly]

Yes, it's that other 10% that's the killer

[Girliefriendlikespuppies]

My dog is coming up a year old now and generally is good, recall is brilliant 99% of the time. He's very attached to dd and I so doesn't like us to be out of sight which is a good thing.

However he's suddenly decided to show how tough he is with other dogs 🙄 off lead he's fine and will generally just say a quick hello to another dog and run on. On lead is a completely different story and he gets very growly and wound up. I try and avoid other on lead dogs but it's tricky sometimes as other people let their dog approach mine.

I'm sure it's just a tough guy act and he wouldn't actually show any real aggression, he's generally pretty chilled out but it's annoying as I tried really hard with socialisation as didn't want a reactive dog.

Am wondering if neutering would help?! 🥜 ✂️ 😬

Here's a picture of the little teenage tough guy 😉

[pigsDOfly]

@Girliefriendlikespuppies What a cutie, he's gorgeous. I think you'd forgive him anything.

A lot of dogs can be a bit funny meeting other dogs when they're on the lead, possibly because they know their movements are restricted and they couldn't get away if they needed to.

If he's doing it because he's a bit nervous or a bit fearful neutering might make him worse.

Might be an idea to work on getting him to focus on you when another dog approaches. Get him to be calm and treat him when he's focusing on you and gradually build it up so that he can walk past another dog without reacting.

It doesn't mean he going to be reactive he just needs to learn that he can walk past other dogs without fear.

[StillMedusa]

Mine's just turned one.. and into a right bolshy madam!

She used to have perfect recall.. then had her first season (won't be spayed til she's at least 18m for bone maturity) and she turned into Kevin the Teenager! Ignores me off lead if she doesn't want to listen, barks at lone men if they dare to be on 'her' country park without a dog...
Has embarrassed me SO many times over the last month that most of the local dog walkers know her name well.... (luckily most have been through the teen stage and are nice about my bouncy embarrassment of a dog)

She;s totally over confident...

Reminds me of my own daughters as teens... at least she hasn't got drop dead drunk on the local park yet.....

I have faith that with continued training she will emerge as a better behaved girl eventually...! (I HOPE!)

[Darklava09]

We have a10month old and my god I feel the pain!!

He’s starting to get assertive with DS, nippy again, stealing, not listening but he didn’t listen much anyways (he’s a frenchie)

So many days I’m telling him no! Ahhh I’m holding out hope for the day he just chills in the garden