Dog adolescence! Help!

[Sunflowers765]

My dog is 13 months old and is in full teenage hormonal mode!
Won't listen, obsessed with sniffing everything, snapping and growling at other young male dogs, obsessed with girl dogs back ends. I currently can't let him off the lead in case he gets into a fight.
I'm sticking to basic training at home as he's been kicked out of training classes currently due to his complete inability to focus on anything except the other dogs and sniffing everything..
He's a bit nervy so I don't want to castrate in case he's worse..
I need to hear success stories!! please tell me it gets better!!

Our working line lab was also rarely interested in any sort of food based reward outside the house (still isn't).

We did do gundog classes, it's hard to say how helpful they were but they definitely weren't a magic bullet. I'd spend half the class just trying to get some sort of focus. Turning point for us was prob around 8/9 months when she decided balls were the best thing ever, so a ball became our reward. The other thing that was useful to me was having someone else acknowledge that she was difficult :-) and see that a lot of the usual suggestions for various bits of training just didn't work and suggest other ideas.

We also did mantrailing and that was good for all of us as she is great at it and it didn't matter about obedience etc. We also did lots of scentwork in the house/garden.

We've currently got a 5 month old too and she is so easy in comparison, I can see it would be a shock if you got the easy one first.

The issue of having him done should be addressed again. Young male dogs can still be interested in a female even if they aren’t in heat or have been spayed. If you can’t change his behaviour and teach him appropriate play this should be a serious consideration. Ours calmed down hugely after having it done at 14 months.

Hi OP , just to sat my 14 month terrier mix was castrated 9 weeks ago and his behaviour HAS improved. He is definitely more calm in general and isn't obsessed with trying to dominate every male of any species.
He also used to be VERY aggressive when I or any female family members were having a period and would bite if pulled off humping someone.

This is 98% better already, still slightly growling if he gets a whiff of blood but not humping !

I wish we'd had him done a little sooner but I was scared, like you, that he would get worse.

He's actually more friendly with alll dogs now. BUT if a male dog tries to dominate HIM, he sticks up for himself which is absolutely right.

Anyway, just do what you're doing and get his balls off and with time and patience alot of that behaviour will subside or lessen. I don't think you need to be spending cash on behaviourists just yet. There's alot of panic mongering with people suggesting behaviouriats left right and centre and half of them are actually completely shite and their 'qualifications' not worth the paper they're written on.

I had my ddog castrated at 16 months and it made a huge positive difference to his behaviour and training

He was quite like you describe (he's not a lab he's some kind of shepherd cross) obsessed with other dogs, wouldn't listen to me when out of the house, massively keen on humping dogs, people, inanimate objects anything really and we also got asked to leave an obedience class as he just wouldn't do anything except bark at other dogs so it was pointless. Had no interest in treats even sausage and cheese, no interest in balls and zero recall.

I wanted to hold out to 18 months as he is a large breed and I wanted to be sure he was finished growing but in the end could not put up with the incessant humping any longer. He was so much calmer afterwards and much much more interested in food and in us rather than other dogs which made him possible to train. He was overall calmer. We have to watch his weight a bit more now and he is a bit reactive to some intact male dogs if they are bigger than him but other than that all the changes have been for the better. He is much more obedient now and has great recall. He's still friendly and loves to play with other dogs but now he won't run off after them. He might occasionally hump when he's very excited but it's rare now

Honestly I would get him neutered if I was you.