Do you have a Springer? Tell me about them (and adolescence!)

[FluffyDogMother]

How long does adolescence last for? Ddog is 10 months, neutered, and very full on!

Walked for an hour in countryside (now on a long line after recall became non-existent - we're putting it down to adolescence and still practice recall everyday), lots of enrichment and interactive toys in the day, 50min walk on lead in evening (sniffs and loose lead training).

He finds it hard to settle in the lounge during the day (will snooze happily of an evening from about 8pm) so it feels like training/enrichment/play is never-ending during daytime. We have taken to forcing naps in his crate in the kitchen just so I can have a break, but he doesn't always settle well. He also jumps and grabs our clothes in his mouth quite a lot - will he grow out of this? He stopped doing it as a young pup but it's started up again.

Everyone talks about puppies, but I'm finding the adolescence stage much much harder. We had a Golden Retriever before so he's not our first dog, but I'm exhausted!

Any tips welcome!

[quote FluffyDogMother]@VioletCharlotte yes he's neutered, stopped him mounting the bitches he met when out (and occasionally us) but not calmed him in any other way.

This is what we did today;
Breakfast then gave it 30mins before we went out at 8am to local country park, 1hr long walk and practiced recall on long line.
Home then 2hr nap
11.30am sweet potato chew, 3 sessions of "find it" hiding about 10 treats each time for him to find in the house. Played tug with rope. 4different interactive toys with treats (Kong and Nina Ottoson), reinforce basic training with treats, chew on a chew toy.
1pm he starts to chill out a bit
2pm nap time
4pm awake and go out for on lead walk, enforcing loose lead walking
5pm he will get more interactive toys with treats
6pm dinner time
6.30pm he'll get Kong in his pen (we eat our dinner)
7pm playtime again
8.30pm he'll eventually chill out on sofa with us
10pm bed[/quote]
Hmmmm.... I think you may be doing too much and over stimulating him. Springers are creatures of habit and have excellent body clocks. If you play a game at 11am for a couple of days in a row, they'll know and expect it every day!

Like small children, sometimes you need to ignore them so they learn to do there own thing. Are you at home with him all the time? (As I'm WFH or SAHM?) If you. If you can afford it, it may be worth getting him into doggy day care a couple of days a week to give you a break from him and him a break from you.

My Springer's picked up some really bad habits since I've been working from home and has got very demanding. I'm having to try and train these out of him by ignoring/ shutting him out the room for a period of time (he still gets plenty of attention, don't worry!)

Ah but if I don't do stuff with him then he's destroying the sofa (digging and chewing), or biting and pulling up the carpet on the bottom stair. He doesn't settle or switch off. I tried teaching a settle on a towel when younger, but he just took to chewing it. He is very fixated on chewing soft things, shoving it to his back molars and closing his eyes like he's in bliss then eats what he chews, which caused issues with toileting - he now can't have soft toys or bedding.

Should add I work full time out of home but DH works at home. DH had led me to believe he was coping but now we are on 2 week hols turns out he has been struggling.

I was a SAHM with our last dog when she was young and took her to training. I don't remember her being a PITA during adolescence though, not like this one! DH used to take her for long walks in the countryside - they were best mates.

We had her PTS earlier this year due to cancer. DH told me how much he missed her and the long walks with her, so we got our boy, looking to recreate what we had lost.

Highly recommend a gun dog trainer, even if you need to travel. We have a Sprocker and going to training suitable for the breed (ie gun dog) was the best thing we did, and still do. No intention of working him, but the trainer will totally understand the issues you’re having and help you to train him to switch off and settle, and also do really focussed training and enrichment activities. You can also work on recall.

We have an 18 month old springer. She’s an absolute dream outside. Good recall (anything for cheese!), polite with other dogs and is learning to ignore most things.
She has, however, been a bit of a nightmare in the house. Stealing and eating toys and generally just being too excited to settle.
It’s been a fine line between crazy over stimulation and being bored.
Things have improved massively in the past couple of months. She will even come and have a snooze next to me of an evening now. Previously unheard of!
A big help for us has been her learning to play outside on her own a bit. She loves patrolling our garden and keeping it safe from local cats!
Hang on in there. They are hard work, but great dogs. 10 months is still really young. Do you have a crate - ours settles really well in hers. We planned on getting rid of it by now, but she’s so keen on it, it will probably stay.
Good luck 🐶

Yes @Blueducks we have a crate. He's happy to sleep there when we go to bed but whines and bangs on the crate door when we put him in for naps during the day. Sometimes he will settle after 5 mins, other times he won't (like this morning). He's currently asleep on my lap.

We had an awful walk this morning; DH & I disagree how to go forward with the behaviour so things are not good. We're both exhausted and upset over how things are going.

@FluffyDogMother can you be precise about what is going wrong on walks?

We are busy working through some challenging behaviours with our WCS so thought we could share some tips.

@CamperVanDriver
For example, today we walked him to a local country park, DH let him off lead. He interacted well with another dog he knows. We walked further and saw a couple of smaller dogs; DH feels he's overexcited with smaller dogs so we diverted to another part of the park. Ddog in his frustration/overexcitement jumped and mouthed me several times - I tossed treats for him to "find it". He then ran through to a private road and initially ignored our recall. When we got him back and put him on lead he started jumping and mouthing again. Did another "find it". Said to DH I don't feel Ddog should be off lead due to recall issues. DH disagrees and said Ddog needs the exercise and is good interacting with others (our dog walker says he is good off lead with her dogs).
We kept Ddog on the lead and came out of the park onto a fast road but Ddog was pulling quite a lot. DH getting cross by this point. Walked home.

DH trained Ddog to recall to whistle but Ddog now ignores it. High value treats like chicken and sausage cannot compare to playing with others as far as Ddog is concerned. Joggers, motorbikes and cyclists excite him too.

When I walk Ddog in the late afternoon it's a street walk along quiet roads with loose lead training - treats in left hand with Ddog, lead in right hand. No interactions with other dogs when on lead as he'll get too excited. My aim is a calm sniffy walk. I've just suggested to DH that this is what we should do in the morning too, but DH says it's not enough for a spaniel.

Ok. 10 months is still very young tbh. Mine is now 16 months. With no recall though, the bottom line is he shouldn't be off lead. It is a fallacy that he can't be worn out unless off lead at that age.

I think you need to try and talk some sense into Dp. With the dog the way he is now, you could very easily lose him if his recall is non existent.

we do a lot of the spaniel training in these videos. They are great as she shows where it goes wrong too.

Our spaniel also jumps up and lunges. It's over excitement. I turn my back and refuse to engage. He used to try this the minute he saw his lead (coming out for a walk). I won't put his lead on now till he is sat nicely and calmly. The principle is to get to a position where the dog is choosing the right behaviour. He knows if he sits calmly lead goes on, if he doesn't, I'm happy to stand there for as long as it takes and we stay inside.

In the morning, I would take him to somewhere like that park but do training. Put him on the long line. Try and call him between you and Dp. Try the games for the stop whistle above for example. Training really tires them out. Make him sit and wait while you hide some treats in long grass then ask him to find them. Do recall but with him on the long line so if he doesn't recall to the whistle you can pull him in.

The main principle with spaniels is impulse control because they are prone to overexcitement and frustration.

Btw I had the same Dp problem as you did. Dp thought the dog was fine (he takes him to gun dog training, I work FT out the house) and the problem was me. I actually believed it was because I wasn't taking him to training that I couldn't get him to do the things Dp told me he could. This Xmas is my first opportunity really to do stuff with dp and the dog and lo and behold the dog acts exactly the same with dp. The dog behaves beautifully in gun dog training because he responds to the trainer. Dp hadn't been practising enough outside lessons grr. Anyway we are back to square one and doing stuff every day but it is starting to work now.

Also one thing our trainer really drilled into us is the principle of sitting and waiting

I didn't really believe it would have such an impact on his overall behaviour but just practising it several times a day inside (to start with, you can then do the garden, then outside in a different place with distractions) has made him a much calmer dog. At first he wouldn't even sit for a few seconds - we can now get him to do far longer but again it took a while!

I feel your pain as they can be so much trouble at this age - we can't walk ours off the longline yet and it is super frustrating as one of the main reasons for getting a dog is enjoying long walks with them.

Thanks @CamperVanDriver I'll check out the videos tonight.

Ddog can sit and lay down on command. He can "turn round" using a treat. I can hold a treat in my hand and he will choose to leave it until I tell him to take it. He will sit and wait without command whilst I do his dinner and whilst I put his interactive toys on the floor. He has just learnt to choose to wait whilst I open a door instead of rushing through. He'll walk to heel in the house and garden when no distractions.

We did try training on the long line but Ddog kept getting caught up in it and DH hates using it. Ddog amped up the jumping and grabbing it yesterday, DH on the receiving end and Ddog drew blood. It's why I've now said to DH that we stick to streetwalks until we see a behaviourist.

Good luck with it. It actually sounds like he's doing really well apart from the one issue so at least that's something!

If it gives you any hope, at that age, mine was obsessed with other dogs and would turn his nose away from a treat if we tried to use them! Now at 16 months, he couldn't care less about other dogs and would do almost anything for a lump of rabbit pâté (other than stop pulling when he is near one of his favourite areas!).

It sounds like he’s doing really well. Keep going with the training. And try to remember he really is only a baby. It’s unfair (and unrealistic) to expect him to behave like an adult at this age. Your dh sounds like he needs to manage his expectations of a puppy.

Bit of an update. Sadly things seem to be getting worse.

Ddog snapped at DH the other evening when he went to pet him when on the sofa. He's also snapped at me when I was sitting on the sofa and moved my hand when I put it next to him to get up off the sofa. We've never grabbed him to move him from the sofa, always used treats and rewarded him, so I have no idea where this has come from.

We're still waiting for the behaviourist to get back to us.

sorry to hear that - fingers crossed they get back to you soon