Teenagers!!!! scary things right?

Stroppy teenagers, terrible twos, we've all got those horror stories of our cute, loving, adorable puppies turning into crazy eyed hooligans for seemingly no reason. They look like they have never had a days training and have zero listening skills. What did you do wrong? ....... nothing! stop beating yourself up, but also stop fighting it. The majority of dogs in rescue centres seem to be these adolescent hooligans that their humans just couldn't cope with. Firstly, when does this start? obviously different breeds have different stages of development but generally when your puppy is 8 months or over it could be prone to this overnight body snatching. As a rule of thumb, the first year of a dogs life is equivalent to 15 human years. The second year is approximately 9 years, and each additional year from then is approx 4-5 human years. If dogs didn't have a human families, this adolescent stage would see them venturing away from their family group and exploring the world and possibly finding different social groups that benefited them. They may regress slightly and have a fear stage as a means to help them stay safe, whilst being very inquisitive and easily distracted by the world. It is a very confusing time for them (very much like human teenagers). So what can you do as an owner? Just keep training. Your relationship does need to change a little bit. You need to be a constant for your dog during this stage. What your dog needs is reassurance from an emotionless, matter of fact, owner. You may find that sometimes your dog might not want to walk past a bush it has walked past every day for the previous 8 months. Yanking and shouting is not going to help your teenager process this and will certainly not help your dog see you as the answer to this or future difficulties. If you can get through this stage as a team, your relationship on the other side of it will be even better.