Adolescent Schnauzer problems!

[missyB1]

So our mini schnauzer is 7 months now and her behaviour is changing - for the worse!
1.Shes demanding a lot more attention, in fact constant.

1. Starting to ignore recall whistle (I always give high value treats if she comes)
2. most worrying is she has started to growl if we make her move off the settee or into another room. Last night she refused to get off the settee and into her basket when we were going to bed, so DH lifted her and she growled at him. He gave her a very stern telling off!

Is this teenage troubles or something else? And whats the best approach? Please tell me it will get better!!

I think you might be in teenager territory especially with the ignoring recall :(

Mine is 5 months old so can't really advise I am afraid as I have that to come

Have a look at dog training advice and support on FB.
They suggest a teach to stay in bed (can't remember the right term!)
Long line until recall is sorted.
Tempt her off sofa or out the room. Throw treat or toy?
Has she seen a vet recently to rule out any pain?

Lure her off the furniture by throwing a food reward away from it.

Never punish a growl. Growling is communication that a dog is not comfortable with something.

If a dog is too scared to growl as a warning it can go straight to the bite. This is how 'he bit out of the blue without warning' situations occur.

Rather like taking the batteries out of a smoke alarm because it warning you that you overcooked the bacon again is annoying you.

Yes luring her off the settee did occur to me but DH just wants her to be obedient without a treat. I'm going to intensify the recall training, and will invest in a longline in the meantime.
I definitely feel like she's pushing all the boundaries at the moment
Sigh......

Would you work without being paid?

Our pups recall went awol at 7 months too but our fault because we hadn't really taught it properly. Two months on after having gone back to basics, long line, high value treats only used for recall, changing my whistle cue she is getting better. Funnily enough she is better off lead and recalling in park areas with other dogs around than in fields. What has helped me is doing lots of focus games with her and chucking bits of biscuit for her to find on the ground as a reward for running back to me without being called as well.
No experience with growling but we decided not to let her on the sofas until an adult dog, if at all. Ours is always so tired she seems eager to go to bed at night but maybe we are very boring in the evenings!

What is she doing to demand attention?

Doing as she's told is being obedient! It's the same as kids. Just yelling at them may not work. If you clean your room then we can go out to the park later would be much calmer and more effective!
Please tell me he doesn't believe he has to be the "pack leader"

You have a mini schnauzer, get used to boundary pushing! Ours is seven and he still pushes boundaries all the time. Just be consistent. Grudging obedience is absolutely achievable with training

Recall did get better after the teenage stage for us. His recall is brilliant now but we did have to keep him on a lead all the time for a while.

Yes fair points about rewards and that is what I always do, tbh DH isn't around much so I do all the training. Going to do some more games at home with her involving treats, but great idea about playing games when we are out to keep her nearby Coco thanks!

Thank goodness, a fellow sufferer! Your schnauzer sounds just like our Mini Poodle boy - he has just turned 9 months and has been behaving like a little s**t lately! (we love him dearly but he is most definitely in full-blown adolescent phase). Ours also growls when asked to move and has started guarding things/places/sofa cushions etc. If we try to take something from him (which we only do if it's something he shouldn't have), he will growl and then snap so we are taking the line of 'here's a lovely treat, let's do a swap', holding out the treat in one hand and extending the other empty hand while telling him to 'give'. This works about 50% of the time! We've also had success with throwing bits of treat nearby and when he goes to get them - having eyed them very suspiciously for some moments! - we can then remove whatever he was guarding and praise him. They have to be very high value treats though - favourites are cooked chicken and dried sprats, although your hands will stink after handling the latter: )
I keep telling myself it's a phase but bloody hell, he has tried our patience in the past few weeks! You've also got the typical terrier stubbornness to contend with so you have my sympathies!

Foxes I'm glad it's not just me, I always seem to feel like everyone else's dog is much better behaved than mine! Let's hope they get a bit less stroppy as they get older.

Missy, Foxes, perhaps we should turn this into a teenage support thread. The bolting, running away thing hit me hard and I have become a bit obsessed with recall training. Our other bugbear is over excitability and jumping up. Problem with cute fluffy dogs, mini poodle/springer cross is that even local dog walking people and my grown up DC won't do the ignore thing. My DH also is pretty hit and miss with consistency😡
On a smelliness par with sprats are tripe sticks!

Oh the jumping up has become bloody embarrassing! Some other dog walkers are good at not encouraging it, some make a fuss of her and she carries on jumping at them, some give me the filthiest of looks and complain about the muddy paw print she just made

Yes to teenage support thread! Not sure about the tripe sticks though, Missy - the mere sight of tripe in the butchers used to make my stomach turn! Poodle boy eats anything though so he'd probably love them.
His recall is pretty good and he's generally very nice with other dogs - so we keep reminding ourselves when he's behaving badly at home, in an effort to convince ourselves that he has some good points!! - but he does not like small children at all and this is highly embarrassing. He's another cute fluffy one so out on walks a lot of people want to stroke him - the mere sight of a small (anything under about 7) child coming towards him makes him start barking. This tends to put them off but I have had to ask that young children not try to stroke him, as I know he'll start growling. I think they make him nervous although we are hoping that this improves as he gets older.
We're trying hard to stop ours jumping up although he doesn't do it all the time. I was less than impressed in the park yesterday though when a massive GSD pup jumped up at me and covered me in mud . Pup was only 6 months old but very big and lanky - perfectly friendly but owner stood there and did nothing! Grrrr.......
What do your pups do when the doorbell goes? Am hoping for some tips as poodle boy goes into full-on barking mode, which lasts for some minutes.....

Mine is 7.5 months and recall is a bit dodgy (though comes back eventually) but our worst problem is the door knock. He goes atomic and actually starts nipping at my leg with over excitement. I end up picking him up to stop this and having to shout 'I'm coming' at the Amazon man with a package for next door.

I've been advised to set up a little barrier between hall and rest of the house and throw low-value treats behind me to distract him so he looks that way rather than towards the door. However, this is really hard to do when you know that if you don't get to door in 60 seconds you'll get a 'while you were out' slip through the box.

I was out yesterday and he went truly feral at the delivery of his fresh raw food. Sadly this was to my dh who's not his biggest fan. Dh doesn't value all his good points - he's fully house trained, very friendly to other dogs, no separation anxiety, has slept through the night without accidents from day 1. No, he just thinks he's a monster due to this behaviour (and admittedly some equally bad behaviour round the dishwasher).

Our pup gets very excited at the doorbell too, we have a gate on the kitchen though so she cant get into the hall, she just stands there scratching at it insanely and yapping! When husband gets home from work she literally goes insane, honestly I've never seen anything like it, shes spinning and turning somersaults in the air!

Has anyone got any tips about the jumping up?

We haven't got a doorbell only a really loud knocker. I think I accidentally trained pup to not worry i.e. not bark at who is coming through the door. We were finishing our extension when we got her and in the first few weeks had all manner of tradespeople in and out of the door which she watched mostly behind a stair gate. Most tickled and stroked her with the result that she associates the front door with fuss and attention which come to think of it is probs why we are struggling so much with the jumping up😙
I also opened and shut the door a lot when she was small, went in and out to get her used to us leaving. Try working out why pup thinks front door is such a big deal. For example, if pup excited by your husband coming home. Ask him to go straight back out the door completely ignoring dog, when pup stops barking, you praise and treat and let husband back in and repeat until message is received by pup that barking doesn't get the reward he wants but being quiet does.
I also need tips on the jumping up and the two fingered salute I get when asking her to sit...as in, well where's my lead then, where's my food bowl, where's the treat, are we at training class...why do I need to sit THEN.

Quick question, how much time does your teenage pup spend alone in garden and do they mooch or find trouble?

Shouldn't be posting really if this is a teenage support thread as my gorgeous girl is nearly six years old, but just wanted to to say that I had the same thing with recall when she was eight months.

It's a bit of a shock if you're not expecting it: your lovely little biddable puppy suddenly, overnight, turns into this horrible teenager.

It does pass. Long line for the recall, knot it and leave it trailing so you can stamp on it and stop dog if he/she is running in the wrong direction.

Treats for everything and lots of them. Find a treat that's high value to your dog for training recall - my dog loved chicken liver treats, although they mustn't have too many of those.

With the odd exception, bribery with tasty treats is the way forward.

Good luck.

Thanks pigs it really does help to hear it will all pass and get better.

coco mine mooches in the garden for ages (anyhting from 10 minutes to half an hour), and yes causes lots of trouble! she has ripped up all the rubber mats from under ds trampoline, dug lots of holes in the lawn, and moves all the bark from the flower beds onto the lawn and patio!

Oh yes, Coco pup loves being out in the garden in all weathers. Usually goes out at lunchtime for a bit on her own then arrives back and announces herself by pushing at the cat flap...used to go through it but too big now. This is apparently my cue to go out and play with her or do some training for five minutes. She digs the grass a bit, chews any twigs she can find and flushes out imaginary birds from the flowerbeds, rearranges her collection of balls. Gets bored comes indoors to see if I have had my lunch yet which means she might get a kong to settle down with. Good news is this palaver can eat up an hour. Often feels like she is ticking stuff off her list...ok what's next!!

Thanks from me too, pigs! Just when I think we are seeing some improvements, poodle boy does something else that's sends us back to the drawing board!! Having never been a destructive puppy, he has now taken to chewing holes in anything with stuffing that he can get his paws on - his new monkey toy lasted 3 days before he chewed a hole in her ear and started pulling the stuffing out and last night, we realised that the reason he had been so quiet was not because he was dozing on the floor but because he had managed to chew a hole in the single duvet that he has always had as a daybed in the sitting room and was merrily pulling the stuffing out!! Needless to say, when we told him to leave it alone, he started guarding it and growling it - treats did nothing so my genius daughter then went outside the front door and rang the doorbell. He always rushes to the door barking so we were then able to shut him out of the room and clear up the fluff!!!! Does anyone else have a chewer?

Foxes...the only thing ours chews other than her own toys and chews is DH s work shoes and his worn socks if he is silly enough to leave them around!

Pigs...just how long does the teenage phase last or is it breed or size dependent? Am hoping it's short 😏

foxes our pup chews the kitchen chair legs and our stone kitchen floor tiles!! I have to go round with the bitter apple spray every day

Tbh, Cocobanas I can't really remember how long it lasted, it felt like forever at the time and I suspect my poor brain has shut some of it out:) but I actually don't think she was too terrible for very long.

I could be wrong, but yes, I suspect it does depend a bit on the dog's personality and breed.

My dog is a small breed and they normally hit adolescence a bit earlier than the big breeds, most dogs mature around 2 to 3 years. Although, the really horrible behaviour shouldn't last that long, hopefully - think months rather than years.

Certainly, the better socialized, and the more training you have in place before the teenage phase hits the easier it'll be.

I was lucky though, mine wasn't a big chewer and being small does make it a lot easier, I'm sure. Although, having said that, trying to catch a small dog when they won't recall is a bit like herding cats as they're very difficult to grab and can move surprisingly fast.