When will puppy calm down

[Magschoice]

I have a golden retriever, had him for 3 months. He’s now 5 months old.

He is great. However he constantly barks.
He barks to go to the toilet, barks for attention, barks for food, barks when we are making food. I have tried ignoring him but it changes nothing.

He also is MAD about food. He bust into the living room yesterday and got hold of half a pizza. He lifted a slice of toast from the worktop in the kitchen and last week when I brought him in after he peed he ran over to the kitchen table and lifted half a steak.

I think the answer might be to put him on a lead when going to the toilet. Otherwise it is chaos.

He’s so lovely but a handful. Also he has never really slept during the day at all. He will have a 1-2 hour nap after a walk and that’s him all day. Always on the go.

Please tell me he will calm down

Of course he will. Give it a couple of years

2 years or so, then they calm down into chilled, happy family dogs, but they need lots of exercise and mental stimulation. Good luck, it’s like having a silent toddler!

God help me

Yep they’re a long time in the puppy stage and walking dustbins forever. That’s labs/retrievers for you

My dog 80% calmed down at 18 months, around the time he was snipped. The last 20% when he turned 3.

I would say months 8-10 are the worst, they are still mentally a bouncy silly puppy but mostly adult in size.

It gets easier

I remember going to answer the door only to come back and find a large family size naan absent from the table. Found puppy in corner looking like he’d got a frisbee stick in his gob
He’s 3 now and like an old man!

We have a barky pup who is also 5 months . But she barks constantly at my other dog when playing in the garden & I can't get out to tell her to shhhhh every nano second, so we got her a collar that buzzes a noise when she barks, it's been really beneficial and she has nearly stopped barking at our other dog. You can get collars that let out a smell when the dog barks as well. Lots of options but obviously a humane collar .

I will say that between 12-18months is when most people get a bit frustrated as the dog seems physically ‘grown-up’ and therefore you expect grown-up behaviour, but in reality they are still in puppyhood.

At 2 years, my dog suddenly turned a corner and started behaving!

My lab x goldie is 8 months and very very bouncy. I keep meeting people who say they calm down around 2....

He did go through a patch of alert barking if he went into the garden for a pee on his own (we have a lot of local foxes so i suspect we had one hanging around) and so yes, we just put him on his lead, let him have a sniff wander then any barking and it was calm "no thank you" and straight back in the house. He now does an occasional bark if he spots a particularly insolent looking pigeon but is mostly pretty good.

As far as the food stealing goes prevention is better than cure I think - ours just doesn't have the opportunity to nick food. Put him a different room or a crate whilst you are preparing or serving food, or eating if he takes food from the table, and don't leave anything out.

I only have limited dog wisdom - he's our first and he's still a prat out on a walk sometimes but we've worked really hard on calm in the house and it is paying off.