Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - Bark the Herald, furry angels sing!

[YorkshireFelix]

New thread to get us through the festive season! Angelic and naughty teenage pups all welcome

@YorkshireFelix I'm afraid @CaptainBeanThief is almost certainly right. Not coming back sounds definitely like the beginning of a new stage for him. All you can do is reinforce what he already knows and keep being positive with him, rather than despairing because – this is the case for pupsy anyway – the second you get that exasperated tone in your voice, he'll think it's even more fun to bugger about. I was watching a Mordor video the other day about naughty cockers which you might enjoy (this being a relative term) if you haven't already seen it.

This is a me thing, probably, and it depends on how your brain works, but I simply refused to engage with the idea of adolescence at the time when it was probably most relevant to us. People told me she would be 'a mad teenager' constantly so because I'm contrary, I just pretended it didn't exist, therefore I couldn't get upset by it. I'm like that about a lot of stuff but I think it probably helped to not get in my own head about it, if you know what I mean.

Weird about the poo. Have you changed his routine/made his walk earlier, ie is he not having enough time to digest in between food and poo? You'd think if he'd eaten something... spicy it would have cleared up by now if it's been a few days.

Ha, yes I do know what you mean! It's not really happening so I won't stress about it. I know the adolescent stage is meant to be way worse but I feel like if I've gotten through the puppy stage then surely I can do this too.

He decided not to come back and be insane just as a big group of people were walking past and it's just embarrassing really. I have put in so much work with him and it was just starting to show and now everyone will think I've got an unruly untrained monster 😂

I'll look up the naughty cocker video for sure. I'm sure today Vinny could be cast as the starring role.

I don't walk him at exactly the same time each day, and also he sometimes doesn't touch his food until later on or will gobble it down first thing. It's completely random. So I have no idea what it could be really!

Milos recall - I mean we have been through some really bad fiascos with him 🤣
If he's being a little prick ( which he doesn't do that much anymore)
I just walk in the opposite direction and he follows me.

He once jumped in a water works ( when he was being a said little prick ) because he thought the other side of the wall was grass - and I had to fish him out with the scruff of his neck 😶 he's such a knob - he still goes off lead thooo

@YorkshireFelix That's how I thought of it too – I had had such a bad early puppy stage that I reckoned I could do anything by that point and then she ended up being fine, or perhaps it just felt fine by comparison/I could more easily deal with it.

People won't think that! Remember the other day when I said pupsy got in someone else's car at the woods... if you look like you're trying even 50pc to corral him successfully you're doing better than the vast majority.

Yesterday we were looking after a friend's dog and took the two of them out mid-morning which was an error on a Sunday, as the walk I foolishly chose was jam-packed with people who quite frankly couldn't have picked out their dog in a lineup, let alone when it was accosting us without any recall. So as long as you're doing better than them, which you are, then you're doing fine.

@CaptainBeanThief I am also a fan of walking in the other direction, works a treat! I do it constantly to keep her watching me so my step map must look baffling from above.

A water works! We once had an incident with a large trough full of algae which she thought was solid and it very much was not. She hasn't tried that again in a hurry!

Ok thank you both, that does make me feel better. I wish I could just not give a fuck but I think maybe because he's my first ever dog AND a bloody spaniel (how irresponsible of me!) I feel like I have something to prove to all these people who probably don't care and don't even know me anyway 😂

I am good at walking off in the opposite direction as I just carry on a lot of time when we're out and about and he's more interested in sniffing something or chasing a squirrel. So I will keep on doing that.

Really pleased he's hitting adolescence just as we're off to stay with my MIL for a few days next week. She's got an old cocker and a young springer and has had many pups so she doesn't care about his behaviour but I want to show off how well trained he is haha!

@brushingboots can you see the black blob in the background, head tilted from the whistle on the YouTube vid 🤣

Ohhhhh!!! We watch that guy!!!
We try to "force" Milo to listen to him so we don't have to train him 🤣🤣
Because I'm irresponsible. We often tell each other we should send him there and never do 😬
Milo is stupid - well he's not but he does stupid shit, I'm probably a "classic MN irresponsible owner" because I let my cocker spaniel run up an incline and get covered in mud.
He forever stinks

Bill is losing his recall finally too, the little bollocks. Only when it suits him, of course, or when it's really embarrassing, like running up to a strange dog the second I take his lead off, or chasing a bird so far that he barely knows I'm there. He was about 98% sound on the whistle and now even that's becoming whenever he feels like it. Little sod. Pulls like a train as well on walks, even though he can walk absolutely perfectly on the lead on the way home, when he chooses to.

Thankfully the worst of my semester is over and I have about a month where it's largely just him and me with much less by way of work demands, so I can hopefully do some much more intense stuff with him - I don't normally watch YouTube stuff but I'll have a look at your bloke, @brushingboots .

He's due to go to post-puppy classes in January - it would be nice if he weren't actually even more badly behaved than during the first round of classes 🙄

Hilariously, the wonderful woman who runs the main daycare he goes to (he's there about half the time, and in a carer's home the rest of the time) said he was so bonkers today, the only way they could get him to take a nap was when one of the staff actually got into the dog bed with him 😄.

@YorkshireFelix were also in the thick of adolescence. Max has taken a step or two back in regards to jumping up at people on walks. He jumped up at a women the other day leaving two paw prints on the back of her coat, she was absolutely fuming. I was so embarrassed, apologised profusely and quickly made a run for it. has anyone got any suggestions on how to combat this jumping up? Since then i've been making him just stand beside me while people walk by and praising him when he keeps his paws on the floor, any other suggestions would be hugely appreciated? It's making me dread going for a walk with.

@lookwhatyoumademedoo I think you’re on the right track making him sit/stand next to you when people pass, but I appreciate it’s a different thing if he’s offlead and people take you by surprise as you’ve got to not only stop him approaching them, potentially stop a dog encounter, but also encourage calm which isn’t always straightforward in a microsecond. I think you want to just keep giving him loads of praise for four paws on the floor, especially in manic situations where he would be tempted to jump, so he learns to choose not to. Easier said than done, I know.

One of my friends’ dogs is a horrendous jumper, but when I see him I get down to his level and he only gets fussed when all four paws are on the floor, or he’s sitting. So that’s maybe another thing to try: never let him do it ever, even to you, and get him to understand that fuss only comes when he is fully on the floor. And, I guess, you need to make sure everyone at home is on the same page as that’s the problem a lot of the time – other people letting them get away with it. Pupsy mostly doesn’t jump up though I allow her to jump on me in specific training situations, but I encourage everyone else to give a firm ‘no, off’ if she ever thinks about trying it on.

He’s worth a look, @Bupster – I don’t go along with everything he does by any extent but he talks a lot of sense and his dogs are amazing. Am hoping I might be able to contrive a situation for work where I can interview him as I’d love to chat to him about spaniels.

All sounds entirely on track for Bill though, even if it is frustrating. Just keep on doing what you’re doing and reinforce his recall madly (as I know you do) when he gets it right and he’ll come out the other end. I thought I’d got our whistle work 100pc and so slacked off it for a bit and she promptly forgot, so just keep it up, even if it feels pointless. They can suffer from skill fade, especially at about this age when there's so much else going on in their tiny heads.

@YorkshireFelix Hahah love it!

Look at my photogenic little doggo devil spawn

@CaptainBeanThief honestly if I had the cash I would 100% send Vinny off for a few weeks for someone else to train him. When V was really small I remember watching one of his videos where he was training a young pup who would then be flown over to a family in America at 18 months - 2 years old to live with them. I wonder how much they paid for it!!

It really is Bill's world and we are all just living in it!

@lookwhatyoumademedoo oh noooo I bet you were mortified, especially if the woman was mad about it! It happened to me a few weeks ago in the woods where a lovely over excited lab jumped up on my nice pink wool coat and his owner was so embarrassed. I could never be mad though, poor you ☹️ I did have a pocket full of sausages though which can't have helped the situation.

I do the same and get Vinny to sit and wait when someone passes but obviously it's not always easy to do. Like @brushingboots mentioned, everyone needs to be on the same page but unfortunately that doesn't happen in my household no matter how many times I tell people not to let him jump up. DH even taught him to jump right up so he could catch him and carry him about and I went mad, not only because it's encouraging behaviour I don't want but it's also so bad for his joints. He 'didn't think' apparently 🙄

So I posted on one of the cocker spaniel FB groups about the mystery afternoon liquid poo and had a few comments all saying it's 'adrenaline poo' which happens when they are really excited. I've never even heard of this but people said their dogs do it on every walk!! But it makes sense since he's otherwise completely fine and does a solid one every morning and evening.

Not really ideal if he's going to do this every time but I am glad it doesn't seem to be anything more ominous. I'm going to have to keep taking a bottle of water out with me to wash it away if it's going to happen on every walk 🤢🤢🤢

@YorkshireFelix I was going to suggest that before but the circs didn't make sense for it, to me. What I call an adrenaline poo is the end of the poo, as it were, when they've already had their first poo, and it's the slimy/runny end of it when they've been running about madly, if you know what I mean. Pupsy used to do them more when she was younger, and occasionally now, but it only qualified as an adrenaline poo if she'd already been, usually within a few minutes of starting the walk. But she also almost only ever poos on walks, which might skew my thinking.

I have written poo a lot there, soz.

One of ours used to do multiple poo's on a walk sometimes; the first would be firm but it would get progressively softer until no 5 or 6 was like a blob of yellow mustard. We always put it down to excitement because the one's he did in the garden were fine.

I'm not sock puppety; it's me. Pyrenean woman. I had a godawful weekend; computer got infected by something and we had to take everything off and start again. My Insta was deactivated but MN got accidentally deleted. The MN people said I'm fine to use same email but new account new name and here I am.

Two of the boys were named breeder prefix Coubous and breeder prefix Tourmalet so that's my new name.

(Must say sorry for rogue apostrophe on above post. Ones not one's 🙄)

Hello! I was going to tag you and ask how you were as you'd been quiet. Sorry to hear about computer troubles, what a nightmare.

It usually starts normal-ish but very soft then is liquid by the time he's finished. Then sometimes he will do another small liquid one a few minutes later. So I'm sure it must be an excited poo (to go with the excited wees, how lovely!). And it's always out on a walk, he's never done it at home. I'm going to keep an eye on him otherwise but he seems totally fine so I'm sure this is what it is.

@YorkshireFelix Bill does adrenaline poos if he's been running madly around the dog park with his friends - usually late afternoon. Not so much as he's got older though. I meant to say this when you first posted but I'm a halfwit at the moment.

@CoubousAndTourmalet they are fabulous names. Is that what you called them? Glad you've got computer nightmare sorted - it sounds awful!

As you may expect I have nothing constructive, useful or relevant to say with regard to training or behaviour. Walk with Brie yesterday was horrendous; on-lead zoomies and excessive lead-biting. She's very wild at times but then redeems herself by walking nicely. But yes, adolescence is in full swing at almost 9 months.

I think I've decided to opt out of the final training session, despite having already paid for it. I'm very happy with her behaviour at home, she is calm, quiet and well-mannered yet when I said she's good at home, the trainer said "she's not perfect though is she?" Clearly what he wants/expects from a dog is not the same as what I want. I think that's the danger in handing over too much control or placing your trust in others to train your dog; you do have to be singing from the same hymn sheet. I made a really bad decision in trusting a bull breeds trainer to understand a LGD, which obviously he does not. So I'm back to square one but I've learnt something from it, I want Brie to be herself rather than being shaped into something she's not.

Obviously we have to work on the lead biting and zoomies, I'm not denying that's an issue but I think 9well, hope) it's likely she'll grow out of it...