What did your puppy’s teenage phase look like?

[Wolfie11]

I was just wondering what age your puppy was when they hit the ‘teenage’ stage and what they got up to during that time? And if they came out the other side . My puppy is 18 weeks and some information online suggests it could start soon 🙈. He is very good so far although I have noticed over the past few days his perfect recall hasn’t been quite as good. I have some 1 to 1 training sessions booked to hopefully get it back on track.

6 months of age he started to be more defiant and his recall went out the window.

The worst time was around the 8-9 months of age when he was a compete arsehole. Recall was terrible and he forgot everything he knew.

Around 10 months of age it got a bit better and by 1 year old he just had his moments but he was over the worst of it.

Thank god he grew up

Ours is almost 10 months so far we’ve had:

Fear aggression towards DS
Crap recall
Getting over confident/cocky on walks re the distance between us
Getting territorial in the garden with next door’s dogs (ie. barking at the fence)
Waking up at 4am
Whining for up to 40 minutes before bed
Whining when we leave him home alone

He seems to be getting over most of this behaviour now (touch wood!) and most days he’s a sweet, calm, loving boy. He’s never reacted badly to another dog when we’ve out, he always just wants to play (again touching wood!).

It was some time ago, but I do remember that around 8 months she started being awkward. She'd come back to my call but as soon as I tried to touch her she would run off laughing, or so it seemed.

I also found that if I was feeling less than in charge of things, feeling a bit under the weather, for instance, she would be particularly disobedient, and would completely disregard all instructions. I remember saying to her when setting off for walks, 'please don't embarrass me today'.

I then had her on a long trailing line for months, probably about 6 to 8 months, before I trusted her.

I just kept on with her training and eventually we got through it; nearly reduced me to tears on several occasions though and I am most definitely not a crier.

Once she got through it she seemed to pick up all her training again quite quickly and developed a really reliable recall and stopped ignoring me.

She's nine years old now and has always been an absolute joy, apart from the teenage phase; I can laugh about it now.

Mine went downhill at six months:

• his recall disappeared practically overnight.
• lots more barking.
• forgot a lot of his commands.
• whining at bitches in heat (we didn't get him neutered until 18m)
• reactive/gobby on the lead to other dogs
• needed a lot more off-lead exercise than he did before or after the teenage months. Luckily we live near a dog-friendly beach
• stole things for attention and became a bit more destructive too.

He had me in tears several times - I found the the teenage months REALLY hard going. But he's 2.5 now and my bestest friend :)

Thanks for the replies! It’s been a long time since I had a puppy and I don’t think any of my previous dogs were ever really all that obedient anyway so I don’t remember the teenage stage 🤣. Sounds like recall will probably go 🙈. My puppy is an Alaskan Malamute and they can have poor recall and be stubborn anyway so it sounds like it’s going to be great fun 😬😂.

@Stackers382 - can you tell me about the fear aggression towards DS? My 10mth old cocker spaniel has suddenly started jumping up and barking at me aggressively for no (apparent) reasons. It's a nightmare. We are seeing (zooming) with a dog psychologist to help us. Just wondered what your experience was and how you solved it.

Heifer Here’s a link to the thread about it. You have my sympathy! It was all quite upsetting but we’re a month on now and the behaviour has stopped (touching wood yet again!) I think it’ll always be at the back of my mind though. Best of luck with it and I hope you find the advise I followed in the my thread helpful.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/3917584-Puppy-being-aggressive-towards-DS

@Stackers382. Thanks for the link, definitely useful to see what was recommended for you. I've just received a full report from the behaviourist, so fingers crossed we can get it sorted. Glad you dog is ok now. It must have been hard for your DS as I find it frustrating myself. I'm now not scared at least as she has told me that he isn't trying to hurt me but it's still horrible when it happens, although things have already improved.

My 13 month cockapoo has recently started to like chewing the sofa and a really old blanket we use for him to "settle" on, I am guessing this is part of teen phase??