Teenage Labrador

[HonoraryScouser]

I could really do with some advice and perspective.

We have an 11 month old Labrador who is absolutely gorgeous but such hard work. Obviously we expected this and I don't think we could be putting in more effort if we tried. We both had dogs growing up but he is our first as a couple, and to say that it's been hard work would be an understatement. Rewarding, but hard work. And we love him completely, that isn't the issue.

Pros:

• Extremely friendly and loving with both humans and dogs
• Crate trained
• Able to be left (in his crate)
• Good recall when no distractions
• Settles well when he's completely knackered

Cons:

• Lies down and won't move whenever there's a dog on the same side of the street
• Pulls on the lead unless you take lots of treats and chicken; sometimes completely ignores us
• Doesn't usually settle in cafes etc
• Gets frustrated in the evening - he walks around panting and whines/barks to go into the garden only to cause havoc, or counter surfs
• Swipes any loose items lying around and constantly steals things

We've done professional training. He gets 3 walks a day. Plenty of mental stimulation and enrichment. Lots of sleep. He isn't neutered, but only because we've been told he's too young. We hire dog fields twice a week and he has a really nice life.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is really, but I just feel like our whole lives revolve around the dog (obviously we expect that in some ways, but it just feels exhausting, like we have a toddler!) and I just long for the day when he can have 2-3 good walks and just... Settle. Just be there and not have to be constantly monitored and worn out.

Will this happen? Or do I just need to chill out?

Solidarity op, that can be hard work at that age! Does he live alone? I know you probably don’t want to hear it but two together are definitely easier, they distract each other and demand less from us, they play together and wear each other out.
Other than that, they do grow up…eventually! It takes time, lots and lots of time. Labs do seem to be slow to mature. Our boy is almost 7 and, whilst way better than when he was very young, still an idiot a lot of the time! Fortunately he lives with lots of doggy friends, so it’s not too taxing but he is still very “young” in his ways compared to his pack members of a similar age.

Hi I know how this feels as I’ve been through it with our springer spaniel, now 2years old. Is he working line or show line? Mine is working line and things massively improved when we started gun dog classes. I’ve learnt to see walks as opportunities to play with retrieving, finding dummies etc rather than long distance wanders. Ours is miles better now, I was tearing my hair out when he was 11 months old!

It does get better. I dont have a lab but mine has noticeably improved all the time since he was 2 and now hes coming up to 4 hes easy as anything. Needs big walks and mental stimulation but as long as he gets those hes a doddle. Youre in a very difficult period. You could be looking at adolescence for another 6-12 months but itll all get slowly easier. I remember figuring out we had more good days than bad days one week and generally things just started to go in a better direction. Once I had clocked that it felt like there was light at the end of the tunnel.

Don't give up on the training, keep being consistent. Labradors are especially hard with pulling and stealing stuff. Just be resilient. Crack on, do it every time you go out, it will all come together and you'll have the best dog ( apart from mine obviously).

There is a long-running teenage dogs thread on here – do come and join for some general solidarity if you want/read through the previous ones. There are lots of other gundog owners on there and we have all had similar issues at various points.

Three walks a day sounds like a lot, even for a young lab. What kind of walks are they/how long etc?

Re stealing, you have two options. Chill out and not worry about what he takes – provided they're safe – or just remove things you don't want him to take. You have a breed that is genetically predisposed to want to have things in his mouth – as do I, with my spaniel. In our house, unless it is dangerous (in which case it wouldn't be lying around anyway) if it's on the floor, it's fair game for her to pick up. If I don't want her to take my favourite shoes (or whatever), I put them out of the way. She needs to hold things in her mouth and that's fine – so does your dog. You can channel the picking-up instinct. I work my girl a bit so she is trained to pick up whatever she's asked to, but this evening I was bringing the washing in and dropped some pants. I couldn't be bothered to go back across the garden and bend over and drop the rest of the washing in the process so I called her and said, 'fetch it,' pointing at my pants, and she picked them and brought them inside for me. Make that instinct into something useful.

What kind of work have you done with him in cafes etc? They can be hard places for alert dogs and even if you put lots of effort in with them when he was a puppy, he's grown up a bit now. Not all dogs enjoy that kind of thing and we have to accept that our doggy lives – which we hoped would be filled with pubs and cafes and fun with dog lying quietly under the table – are not a given. In general (and caveat, I am not a trainer) you want to be going slowly with it. Reward quiet and calm when it happens, do it in very small portions, building it up, and don't overface him.

What is your evening routine? Wandering round being annoying and panting and whining is very tedious for you. Has he got an off-switch – does he self-settle? If you tell him to 'go and lie down?' does he?

I don't feel qualified at all to speculate on what to do about him planting and not moving when he sees another dog – I'm sure someone else will come along with ideas about that. But do join us on the teenage thread as it's a very supportive, judgement-free place.

He does, he's our only dog. I think he probably would like a companion but maybe a bit further down the line!

Show line, thank god!!

Thank you 🙏🏼

You need to teach him to settle. There is no excuse for him not to at his age. Put him on a long line in the house. If you are sitting on the sofa, for example, ask him to settle down near you. If he wanders off, reel him back in. Rinse and repeat. He will very quickly learn that settling down is easier. If he whines etc just ignore him.
You say he pulls on the lead and just ignores you on walks. Don't let him. He pulls, you stop or change direction. Every time. He will learn v quickly to keep an eye on you.

Thank you, I'll definitely have a look at that thread!

His three walks total around 1.5-2 hours per day. They're really not all big walks. I'd say one per day is on a long line or off lead and the other two are sniffy pavement walks where he spends most of it with his head in a grass verge.

Thanks for the advice with the stealing! We do try to ignore it for the most part, but if he won't give something up then we trade him for a treat.

Re cafes etc - we didn't really get on with place training but we did take a trainer's advice to essentially ignore him and remove food as treats for settling, so that he would learn to switch off. We do take him to pub gardens and outside in cafes, and we're hoping this will build up his tolerance for going back indoors.

Our evening routine is dinner at 7 (after his final walk) and then we expect him to settle down really between then and bed at 11. He might have a nap in his crate if he really won't relax. If he won't settle, then we might do a bit of scent work with him and he can have a chew, but we don't generally do much play with him after dinner.

I currently have two young dogs, to be honest I allow them time to play after their evening meal, they have a mad half hour and then settle down for the evening. Without that half hour of play they are a nightmare and I spend all evening trying to get them to settle. I also give them something to chew which helps to quiten them down.

He sounds incredibly overstimulated. How much down time does he get and how much sleep?

Quite a lot! 8 hours overnight and then he's expected to relax/sleep between 9am and lunch, after lunch and for a couple of hours in the evening. If he won't settle then he will happily sleep in his crate. He probably sleeps 16-18 hours in a 24h period.

He doesn't sound over stimulated to me, my working labs would be climbing the walls with just a couple of pavement walks and one on a long line. I think I'd be looking for a good long off lead walk daily.

When you say mental stimulation, what do you mean?

Training, hide and seek with treats, snuffle mat etc

The problem with using food as mental stimulation is that you’re just giving them lots of extra fuel which they then need to burn off.

I would focus on making the walks more enriching rather than using food as an enrichment tool.

But he’s only 11 months old so his exercise still needs to be restricted to a certain extent, plus you also need to be careful with using physical exercise to tire them out - eventually you just end up with a super fit dog that needs tons of exercise.

The problem with using food as mental stimulation is that you’re just giving them lots of extra fuel which they then need to burn off.

I keep seeing people say this sort of thing on here, but everyone I know isn't giving more food for these sorts of activities but taking out of existing allowances.

Over arousal is very rarely about excess energy in any case.

It doesn’t matter that it comes from their usual allowance though - it’s about the fact that you’re constantly shovelling energy into them and then wondering why they can’t settle down.

I also disagree that over arousal isn’t connected to excess energy. If you put energy into your dog every couple of hours via meals, mental enrichment, training and treats, then that energy needs to go somewhere. An 11 month old Labrador isn’t just going to sleep it off, they’re going to be bouncing off the walls.

Oh I remember it well, mine is ten now!

We don’t really take her to cafes, occasionally a pub but she’s SO friendly she would just be wanting to interact with people!

At that age she had one longer walk, offlead in fields so she could run and play with other dogs but we are really lucky here that everyone happily let their dogs off to play.

She would have another offlead walk later.

Mine wasn’t too bad at counter surfing but everything was kept at the back so she couldn’t reach it. She liked stuffed kings as bd things she could chew on for some time.

I think up until about age 3 was hard work. She’s still a bit bonkers though at 10. People cannot believe how happy and friendly she is. She still gets excited when people visit.

How much of it is actual training? And how much is just snuffle matts and food related 'lazy' games?

I'm asking because we very often see people on mumsnet, and I see people who come to our rescue asking for help, who say they do lots of mental stimulation with their dog but actually 99% of it is doing a snuffle mat or hide and seek with treats. What all these people have in common is they are doing this sort of stuff with their dog and it's incredibly over-stimulated and chronically bored. None of that, except the actual 'training' is mental stimulation...it's over-exciting your dog and giving him food = energy. It works for a few dogs, but not many. You're not doing scent work.

At our rescue (Golden Retriever specific) found that very often, when these dogs are relinquished and they go into foster and the 'brain games' stop...the dogs calm down. It's like a completely different dog appears within a few days/weeks maximum - because they're no longer over-stimulated by these games, and instead are given proper training. We actually say on our local breed website that these games are a really bad a idea - for all the reasons laid out above.

I have Golden's so slightly similar. By 11 months, mine are getting about 90 minutes exercise a day but it's all off-lead. About 8(ish) miles. I think very often people fail to differentiate between 'walks' and exercise. A slow sniffy walk is all well and good, but you have a high-energy breed slow 'sniffy' walks really do not cut it. Just because a dog is show line doesn't mean it's exercise needs are not significant.

So, 'mental stimulation' should mean training - not food related games, which often do more harm than good - and exercise should mean decent walks - at his age, I'd be expecting 6/7miles a day minimum of good exercise.

Sadly, based off what you've said, your dog sounds like it's been given far too much 'energy' and not being given significant outlet. And I'd hazard a good guess he's planting on a walk because he's not very well trained and is incredibly bored/his energy needs are not being met. You say he has 'recall when no distractions' and 'settles well when knackered.' That's not a well trained dog. That's a fair-weather dog.

Personally, I would cut out all those games and do 3/4 5-10 minute training sessions a day with your dog. I'd be giving him proper walks, not just sniffy ones, and making sure that all his needs were met. You also need to teach him to settle without entertainment - part of your problem is I imagine you give him these 'games' to entertain him, and thus he's never learnt to settle.

None of the above is meant to be nasty or rude, but it's based off years of experience dealing with situations like this.

We did everything we could to stop our lab pulling on the lead but the only thing that worked was a Halti. I was against it to start with but someone suggested I see it as like a halter on a horse. Quite simply by controlling the animal’s head you have more control overall.

As regards settling in the evening. Our dog was a right pest after we had all eaten and sat down for a bit of TV time. Once we had settled, we gave her a toy with tiny pieces of treats hidden, for her to find. This kept her quiet for a bit. We then let her out once, so we knew if she pestered to go out she didn’t need to, other than to check on cats, squirrels and other intruders.

That was it then, quiet time for everyone. We gave her a cosy basket in the living room and encouraged her to use it, with treats and soft toys. We all then completely ignored her if she came for fuss or pestering. If she went into the basket she got a reward.

Frankly, it took quite a long time but it did work. Labs are smart and if they can work out how to play you, they will.

OP, I agree with @LandSharksAnonymous on so much of what she says, but differ on one thing – saying 6/7 miles (or however much) is fine but for me and my drivey, working line dog, it's not always about the distance but the content of the walk. Yesterday, for example, she did 140 minutes exercise with her collar on – which has a Fitbit thingy on it, so excluding any exercise she did while we were at home/lunchtime training in the garden – and she, not me, went 6.4 miles. But the first of those walks was super enriching because there was lots of game about. The second was just her running round and we bumped into a friend.

So yes, she did six miles yesterday but she might not today because this evening's walk will be a training walk and we'll be out for 40 minutes but mostly hunting in a small area. She'll cover less distance but she will have worked her nose and her brain far more. So yes, distance is a factor but for me it's far more about the content of the activity. If I do 20 minutes of serious hunting with her she's more tired than if she's run for 90 minutes. That's why I asked about what kind of walks you do with him.

You're not doing scent work

Dogs sniffing out treats is very much the same sort of engagement as scentwork, yes the reward method is different but it's doing the same sort of 'work'.

And there's no way you need to do 6-7 miles every day with an 11 month old Labrador. I have working line labs and they don't get nearly as much, quality over quantity.

At 11 months, some of it will just be immaturity.

Not a Labrador owner, but just coming out the other side of adolescence with a similar size active dog who also seems to come to life at night no matter what he has done in the day. I have seen a noticeable difference with age so I think staying consistent and waiting it out plays a part.

The replies above about brain games are interesting and I do think I created an expectation that evenings are for playtime by accident, I think it goes back to when he was really young and I was using toys and games to redirect him biting.

Maybe look at the timing of your walks. I find one or two longer walks help, as if he goes out for multiple shorter ones he sometimes comes back frustrated (even though it all adds up the same). I also switch up routes daily for his long ones to try and give him something new to smell, I have no evidence at all but think this helps us!

Edited to add I spent a fortune on a dog training session that was effectively walking in parallel to a well trained dog for an hour. This did help! We also sit and watch things (still), and I’m still rewarding for looking at dogs and then focusing on me. I have no idea how long I’m going to have to do this for but hoping it will become automatic at some point.