Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - get teenage licks right through the night!

[Bupster]

I've buckled and started the new thread - welcome to the horror of adolescence!

What counts as adolescence please? Belle is just turning 6 months, but I'm pretty sure the teenage attitude is starting already! Things she would do quite happily before, she now has a huff about - and she got very stroppy with me yesterday when I ignored her trying to get attention while I was working - and she seems to suddenly consider herself protector of our house!

@ComeTalkToMe I think @YorkshireFelix's Vinny announced his adolescence to her quite boldly the day he turned six months so you and Belle are very welcome here!

That is exactly how I would put it, she’s announcing her adolescence loudly 😂Thank you!

Yes it's literally like a switch flipped overnight on the day he turned 6 months. It was so strange! Now he's almost 9 months and even worse 😂

@YorkshireFelix Not making me feel better about my angsty dog! I was reading about your sleep issues, sounds tough, you have my sympathy!

@ComeTalkToMe Part of the huffing will be her inherent cocker nature which she has been keeping well hidden from you until now. They are very opinionated and things do have to be on their terms. But that's what it makes so fun!!! (Laughs drily)

Thank you @ComeTalkToMe 🙏🏻

We tried having him upstairs again last night but he managed to pace around, chew and whinge for almost 2 hours before DH relented and took him downstairs...

BUT our positives recently have been:

He's doing better with his on lead walking. There was a discussion about before-poo and post-poo walking (can't remember if it was on the puppy thread rather than here) and I'd not really thought about it before, but he walks much better after he's got the poos out! I love it when he decides to walk to heel and looks up at me with this happy face.

He is starting to correct himself when he gets too overexcited and bitey. We've been working on moving away and telling him to settle when he gets like that, and most of the time he will sit and be nice again. He's realised if he sits nicely he will get lots of attention. You can actually see the moment his brain decides to stop being a menace as he remembers he will get a reward from it.

He had a good physio session today and the physio said she took some videos and pictures of him because he was very cute and did so well. She is very positive about him and his behaviour and thinks he just needs to build his confidence up a bit. So that's nice!

Oh my god @YorkshireFelix I cannot believe he is still so unsettled at night. If you ignore him entirely – absolutely and completely, no eye contact, nothing – in your room does he just carry on pacing? I’m trying to stare into his soul and figure out what the issue is.

I think it was me on the puppy thread with the poo/post-poo theory! So glad it’s working for you also. I agree about when they look up at you when heeling – it makes it all worthwhile. Yesterday morning I was with a friend and her spaniel and pupsy was showing off heeling off lead while my friend’s dog ran laps around us. I was bursting with pride as we have worked on it lots and when she offers me the behaviour of her own accord it’s amazing.

He is growing up so quickly – it’s all clicking into place for him, except the dreaded sleep.

( those of you that are not snobs 🤣🤣)
There is a pet event on at Aldi - beds, toys, treats, car harnesses, harnesses, car covers etc
I've just got Milo a carrot toy and a huge packet of beef sticks 😁😁

Those big donut beds from Aldi are the best. Vinny destroyed his but if you have a non destroying dog they are fab!

We both literally laid down and closed our eyes with the lights off the whole time. I don't know what it is about being up there but it stresses him out. He settles immediately as soon as you come downstairs to sleep!

Arg, @YorkshireFelix , I'm so sorry you're still struggling with this. It must feel never-ending, and you must be exhausted. How lovely that your physio said such nice things though - honestly some weeks I hang on Bill's good school reports from daycare 😄

Bill offered a heel this morning, while still on a long line at our morning walk place. This is where he's normally free to go sniff and dig and run around a bit. I got him to sit several times at my side and walk on too. I know it's a tiny achievement but such a big deal for us, he's struggled so much with loose lead walking (and everything else). He managed a record 50 steps (mine not his) of heel walking on lead between rewards on the way home too.

I was thinking about this a bit on the way home from work today as he's at daycare so I had headspace. I think I got really complacent because his recall was so good at six months old, and he was so social and resilient and generally lovely, didn't hump, didn't resource guard, etc etc, and I just wasn't emotionally prepared or sufficiently skilled for adolescence. If his recall had been rubbish, or he'd been a different sort of dog, I might have recognised my weaknesses more, and focused much more on keeping him engaged. Now I'm having to go right back to basics and he's responding so well it's hard to believe (though in fairness to both of us, I do think he's been going through a fear period and was really struggling badly for a few weeks).

I was thinking about @brushingboots saying once (I think - forgive me if I've misremembered) that at six months you decided you had to put pupsy's needs first and that it got easier from then. Was that when you really started training seriously? Because I was also thinking about why adolescence wasn't so awful for you, and why Bill has been so tricky, and I do think it's because it was at about six months that I stopped training seriously - work got really busy and as I say, I got very complacent. So long as his recall was good I could let him roam quite far from me without worrying, so I never focused on building his focus and engagement with me. Then adolescence hit and he was completely out of the habit of focusing on me on walks; he'd become used to making his own choices until I called him away from them.

Anyway, this morning I was much more the centre of his world and it was lovely, and much easier than it's been over the last few weeks. Sausage helped, I'm not going to lie, but working on the very simplest things like responding to his name and sitting have helped so much - in case anyone else is tearing their hair out right now.

I can see the change in Bill week to week from your posts @Bupster and it sounds like he's doing really well ⭐️ I think we can all have the odd shit day where everything goes completely wrong, but it seems like in general he's improving constantly.

I'm not going to lie, the sleep issue is fucking awful. Everything would be so good if we could fix it. We are both exhausted but we've tried everything now (except crying it out) and have no other options. DH said he will speak to MIL about them maybe having him for a few nights but I honestly don't think it will do anything except give us a break!

Reading through this thread has reminded me why I like the puppy one so much, I am not alone!! 😂

@YorkshireFelix so good to focus on what's going well as well as what's going not so well - and I am really interested you say Vinny is still getting over excited and bitey sometimes because so is Belle, although very different to when she was a tiny puppy. She's trying to get my attention if I'm ignoring her, or just getting over excited and it's more mouthing, than biting. It's just I read somewhere that if they're still doing it now you have a big issue, and I was thinking no-one else's dog still does it at this age, and I'm an awful dog owner but I know she's not aggressive, and I am trying to be really consistent in how we deal - so I do still have hope it will continue to get better.

@brushingboots I also appreciated the pre-post poo advice. I have now started to ask for much less heel walking from Belle - just after her first poo and up to big grassy bit near us, then she goes on long line and we just do lots of puppy retrieves, running about (I look like a loony) and playing. Then back on the lead for a little bit of heel back to the house... and I started enjoying taking her out again, and she started to enjoy it more. Much better for all.

It's so helpful to here it's not been a straight line for others - as it makes me feel less of a failure! I am really looking forward to seeing this gun dog training as I think it will give me different things to work on that she will hopefully enjoy, but again I need to remember it's not going to be the answer to everything.

Hmm I think it was also myself that warned you it was going to get really hard in adolescence 😂 @Bupster

I believed you! But you have to live it, don't you?

@ComeTalkToMe it absolutely is normal for them to still be a bit bitey at this age. Do you also have a spaniel? V is almost 9 months and still bites to get attention, when he's over stimulated or when he's playing. But as you said it's different to puppy biting as it's a lot softer and in a more 'playful' way. Still hurts when he catches you though!

We've been trying to teach him the 'correct' way to play and how to read our body language and used a good method our trainer taught.

You need a toy which is long enough for you to hold each end and your dog can grab the middle. You hold it and make it really exciting so they grab the toy and play a bit of tug with it, then you change your body language to signal you've finished playing and hold the toy down on your lap. As soon as your dog lets go you say 'yes!' (Or whatever your positive marker word is) and then start playing again. They eventually get the idea that when your body language changes it's time to stop playing. We've been doing this for a while with him but he's suddenly started to show signs of really understanding it recently. If he's jumping up at me biting my arms or hands when I'm trying to work as he wants attention, I turn away and ignore him and as soon as he sits down I give him a big fuss. He's now realising that when he's calm he gets rewarded.

He does still have his moments where he's over excited but I will just leave the room and shut the door, or stand in the corner of the room with my back to him. He's been obsessed with biting hands and arms ever since he hit his teenage stage but it's slowly improving.

We also found he went through a much more bitey and chewy stage a couple of weeks ago but I found out they have a second teething period where their adult teeth set into their jaw and it can cause them pain. It seems to have passed within a week or so.

@ComeTalkToMe - at 6 months I once had to leave my sweatshirt still in the garden with pup attached as I couldn't get her to let go!

I know exactly to what you refer, @Bupster. I think it was a bit earlier than at six months, when I was really struggling with her as a puppy and I just thought, no, she comes first – I have to manage this properly and make this dog into what I want her to be. But yes, that’s more or less otherwise true – we started seeing our gundog trainer when she was five months and that’s when I kicked her properly into action. And I’ve never really stopped: we do as much work on new skills, strengthening her existing skills, and repeating old skills now as we did when she was younger, and I trained with her very consistently through what should have been adolescence. Is that why she didn’t really have one, apart from learning to bark? Maybe, but it could be about her personality too.

On the whole she’s pretty sound now and I realised that the other day when it was tipping it down and I was quite frankly phoning it in, trudging along trying not to freeze to death. She was running ahead and behind, and to the side of me constantly, checking in, not going too far, just existing really, in quite a scenty environment, and she did that virtually without me saying a word for about 90 mins. I did some stop whistle drills and some hand signal practice for her but other than that I just walked and she just ran and I thought, I’ve got the dog I wanted. Not every walk is like that but on the whole she is a lovely person to be with.

I am cautious though of being too complacent and assuming that she’ll always be like that. At the end of the day she’s a dog, not a robot, and usually her errors come from me not being clear enough with what I was asking her to do.

@ComeTalkToMe You are definitely not alone and we’re always glad to add another spaniel to our coven. I’m so glad the pre/post-poo advice is working for you too! That sounds really fab for her and for you – it's just what she needs. I think we often forget to have fun with them amidst all the angst about what they ‘should’ be able to do. Most of the working spaniels I know don’t ‘do’ anything until they’re a year old or more so really, don’t stress.

It’s definitely not been a straight line for us, and you are in no way a failure! Gundog work will help immensely – no, it’s not the answer to everything but it probably covers off a good 70pc of what she needs in life because you can transfer so much of it to non-work situations. I can guarantee that she will love it!

And @Bupster, to echo @YorkshireFelix I know not just from here but from real life too that Bill has come on so much, even if you feel like he’s slipped back a bit. You’re both doing so well as his hormones rage. I’m sure boys are harder than bitches – that certainly seems to be the conclusion reached between all of our dogs here, at least.

@YorkshireFelix Outdoor kennel?! I am only half-joking. In all seriousness though I wonder if some residential training somewhere would help him, though perhaps when he’s signed off from the physio again. Or perhaps having a trainer in the house when it’s happening (somehow) so you can have another pair of eyes looking at it fresh and trying to dissect it in situ?

I keep looking at Wildnook that you recommended to me but we are sooooo skint because everything is tied up in the restaurant at the minute so there's no way I'd be able to afford it. I am not even enquiring as I know it will be £££. Residential training would solve the issue I bet though!! I did consider speaking to his breeder about it but he's a very no-nonsense Yorkshire man and I know he would say just leave him to cry it out and that we are being too soft on him.

I've been speaking to our usual trainer and she is more than happy to see him 1:1 once his physio is finished. She's got a beginner gundog course starting in April too so I'm going to see if I can book that. She asked me to send a video of what he does when we put him in his crate at night, just in case she can see anything we haven't picked up on, but she's not got back to me yet. I know she's super busy though and I'm just appreciative of people trying to help.

@ComeTalkToMe Midge pulls a lot more when he needs a poo. He pulled me most of the way around the park this afternoon. I knew it was poo time so I let him sniff.
The little bugger didn’t go until we got home.

Training is definitely not linear. I had a great outing a couple of days ago he returned pretty promptly and for most the walk he stuck close by. The problem I had was the lack of opportunity to practise recall as he didn’t go far enough away!
Today was the complete opposite- dashing all over the place, head down sniffing, ears turned off, and completely ignoring me. I tried everything- hiding, running away from him, getting down low. Midge stuck 2 claws to me and bogged off.
When he did respond to me he ran towards me, swerved at the last minute and ran right past.

I’ve been doing impulse control. I have some cheesy ball treats. He’s able now to sit and wait whilst I roll them past him. He’s getting good at waiting until I give him the release cue when he makes eye contact. So that’s good I suppose!

This is all so reassuring - it does sound like all your guys are making progress but it’s hard for us to see isn’t it, when you’re in it?

Pic of the little rascal!

She is so gorgeous. If they weren't cute god knows what we would do 😂

Honestly this thread has 100% saved my sanity over the past few months.

I think I find this thread so supportive as we all have the goal of having a well rounded, well behaved dog, and we are willing to put the effort in.

On the other hand, if didn’t have such self imposed high standards, I think I would be quite happy with my pup!