Doggie Adolescence: how to survive it
Ok, so after posting about how well Oskar is doing, we went for a walk. Epic walk fail. Oskar is clearly a teenager now!
He's been pretty good about walking on the leash, and we'd even gotten to the point that he'd heel....only for a minute or so at a time, but he'd do it. He had started to tug on the leash a bit, but nothing I couldn't control, and mostly, he's just a polite and sweet dog.
Not on Weds! He acted like he had never been out of the house in his life. His head was whipping around like he'd never seen so much interesting stuff ever. He pulled--hard--to get at all the other dogs in their yards, and since he's so damn big, of course he can almost pull me off my feet. He tried to chase cars. He acted as if he had never been on a leash walk before. We got, maybe, half a block from the house, because I had to keep stopping and walking the other way to get him to walk on a loose leash, which he'd do, but for maybe 20 or 30 secs, then back to crazy pulling. He even pulled the leash out of my hands and ran off down the road, but thank god, when I called and crouched down he came running back to me in delight (thank god he's not a Shiba!) I walk him on the freedom harness, btw, which is supposedly a non-pulling harness, but it had little effect (and I was so frustrated I had a bad moment of understanding why people use prong collars. I'm not going to do it--I'm going to go back to the beginning of practicing loose leash walking in the house and yard, but I did see how people could end up with them!)
Anyway, I knew he was approaching adolescence, but this is the first I've really seen it manifested. Now I'm noticing that if he is in the yard, and I call him, he just ignores me. (he's still eager to learn and good in the house, but obviously, no distractions there). Also, his interest in other dogs has just tripled....and while he's not growling or anything, he does his excited "hop" when he sees them, and then tries to pull me over to them, and of course, he's 100 pounds. He can easily pull me.
He's not neutered yet, and I'd prefer to wait til he was a year old. I haven't ever had an unaltered dog of this age, so I don't know if he's any worse than any other dog at this age--certainly I remember my (neutered) GSD being suddenly impossible at this age. I also think Oskar may SEEM particularly bad now because he was such an easy puppy. I didn't notice the Sheebs adolescence because they were such holy terrors as pups that really, what could be worse? *lol* So Oskar probably just seems bad in comparison to how usually good he is.
So questions: how do you all deal with the teenagers who suddenly are all "la la la I'm not listening to you!"? Tips? Tricks? Esp. for dogs whose behavior regresses? My plan is just to kind of start over on leash walking....does that make sense?
Also, for those of you have unaltered dogs, do you think adolescence is worse in them?
And oh, lord, how long does this last?!
He's been pretty good about walking on the leash, and we'd even gotten to the point that he'd heel....only for a minute or so at a time, but he'd do it. He had started to tug on the leash a bit, but nothing I couldn't control, and mostly, he's just a polite and sweet dog.
Not on Weds! He acted like he had never been out of the house in his life. His head was whipping around like he'd never seen so much interesting stuff ever. He pulled--hard--to get at all the other dogs in their yards, and since he's so damn big, of course he can almost pull me off my feet. He tried to chase cars. He acted as if he had never been on a leash walk before. We got, maybe, half a block from the house, because I had to keep stopping and walking the other way to get him to walk on a loose leash, which he'd do, but for maybe 20 or 30 secs, then back to crazy pulling. He even pulled the leash out of my hands and ran off down the road, but thank god, when I called and crouched down he came running back to me in delight (thank god he's not a Shiba!) I walk him on the freedom harness, btw, which is supposedly a non-pulling harness, but it had little effect (and I was so frustrated I had a bad moment of understanding why people use prong collars. I'm not going to do it--I'm going to go back to the beginning of practicing loose leash walking in the house and yard, but I did see how people could end up with them!)
Anyway, I knew he was approaching adolescence, but this is the first I've really seen it manifested. Now I'm noticing that if he is in the yard, and I call him, he just ignores me. (he's still eager to learn and good in the house, but obviously, no distractions there). Also, his interest in other dogs has just tripled....and while he's not growling or anything, he does his excited "hop" when he sees them, and then tries to pull me over to them, and of course, he's 100 pounds. He can easily pull me.
He's not neutered yet, and I'd prefer to wait til he was a year old. I haven't ever had an unaltered dog of this age, so I don't know if he's any worse than any other dog at this age--certainly I remember my (neutered) GSD being suddenly impossible at this age. I also think Oskar may SEEM particularly bad now because he was such an easy puppy. I didn't notice the Sheebs adolescence because they were such holy terrors as pups that really, what could be worse? *lol* So Oskar probably just seems bad in comparison to how usually good he is.
So questions: how do you all deal with the teenagers who suddenly are all "la la la I'm not listening to you!"? Tips? Tricks? Esp. for dogs whose behavior regresses? My plan is just to kind of start over on leash walking....does that make sense?
Also, for those of you have unaltered dogs, do you think adolescence is worse in them?
And oh, lord, how long does this last?!
Comments
With Conker whenever he ignores me I ignore him right back. I walk around the apartment and "clean up" everything that's his and put it away so he has nothing to do. That usually gets his attention.
Right now we've gone back to attention exercises!
I found this series on Dogster that was pretty good about canine adolescence:
http://blogs.dogster.com/dog-training/teen-angst-part-i/2011/01/
It's a several part article. One thing I found interesting was they mentioned how dogs really come into breed type at adolescence: that's when we tend to see they are Akitas or COs or dalmations. I noticed this with Oskar. He's been much more interested in guarding lately, including guarding Bel, which isn't a bad thing, because it's one of the reasons we wanted a big dog (and yes Brad tried to convince me that a LGD would be a good choice and he was right, but I had my heart set on an Akita). Anyway, Oskar is very concerned about Bel, and gets in between her and percieved "threats." Today it was a very funny one: big clumsy boy knocked over a stool, and that scared him, so he ran, but then Bel went over to investigate, and it was clear her was afraid, but felt he needed to protect her, so he got in between and the scary stool, and then laid down near it so he could keep an eye on it! *lol* Silly boy! But he does do a lot of the getting in between the person/dog he thinks he's protecting and whatever the percieved threat is, and he does it very calmly and quietly.
On the less fun side, he's suddenly WAY more interested in other dogs...in that "oh, I'm an Akita!" way....