Your puppy is growing up and that means they will be experiencing adolescence! Yes, puppies go through it too! Here’s how to manage their changing hormones and continue to improve their obedience and behaviors!
Puppies, much like their human counterparts, experience adolescence. It’s a great time where they’ve left their very young new puppy phase, from still trying to figure out basic things like learning their name, potty training, and who their family is, and have moved on toward becoming confident young adult pups. Now they can do more things with you that they were still too young for, but adolescence brings its own set of challenges. Your puppy might try to test their boundaries, may not listen, and put your patience to the test. Don’t panic though! This time in their life offers a great opportunity to solidify their foundational basic obedience training so it engrains into the rest of their life.
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From Puppy to Teen Dog
So how do you know if your puppy is in their adolescent phase? Puppies will actually go through about three different adolescent phases starting at five to six months of age. The second may occur around the ten months to one-year-old mark where your puppy is almost at their complete adult size. And their last phase can go up to two years old so that entire year, give or take a few months depending on your puppy’s breed, can be considered adolescence!
Aside from age, you may simply start to notice differences in their behavior. It could be your puppy is engaged in their training then suddenly lose interest and ignore you. They might start to not listen to obedience commands you’ve trained them and they’ve successfully completed in the past. You might notice some snippy-ness or stubborn-like behaviors, or your puppy is more inclined to be independent than look to you for activity or guidance. And your puppy might show some more energy and act out impulsively i.e. counter-surfing or chewing on things they shouldn’t.
How to Manage Adolescence
The best way to manage these new teen behaviors is to reinforce their basic obedience training; avoid the inclination that they are “doing great” or “already know everything” and teeter off the consistent puppy training routine. Structure comes through crate training, “Place” command training, maintaining your puppy’s daily schedule when it comes to going out to relieve themselves, going down for naps, specific playtimes, and puppy training with food...all of these will need to be maintained to help your puppy work through their changing hormones and strengthen your leadership role with your puppy.
You may need to go back to using more food rewards if your puppy is being stubborn and not listening to commands to help reengage their focus on you. As an adolescent, they are also testing your ability as their leader so maintain that role by really bringing your puppy’s attention back to you whenever they’ve lost focus or seem more interested in something else.
Crate Training: Your puppy’s crate is one of the most useful tools in your arsenal. It’s not just for getting your puppy on a specific potty schedule or getting them to sleep through the night. Your puppy’s crate will also be indispensable when they’ve reached adolescence and you need to create a physical boundary, provide them with a safe, controlled space to settle and rest, and a space where they can simply exist and hang out while at home.
If you notice that you’re adolescent puppy is suddenly chewing on furniture again, or so excitable by everything happening at home and can’t seem to settle, have them go to their crate. When you initially started crate training your puppy prior to six months of age, you may have started with short intervals anywhere from ten to fifteen minutes of alone time in the crate. As an adolescent, you can begin to work up towards an hour, allowing them to relax and calm any over-stimulated energy.
“Place” training: Along with your puppy’s crate, their place cot or bed combined with using the command “Place” creates a physical boundary and location for your puppy to target and remain. Again, if your puppy is “acting out” their place is a great tool to have them work out some energy, and most importantly, redirect them from whatever they shouldn’t be doing!
What can You Expect to Work on with Your Teen Dog
Adolescence provides a great opportunity to start to challenge your puppy’s growing skillset!
During this time, you can start to introduce more advanced outdoor obedience and work using a long line. Your puppy will have a full laundry list of obedience skills that they know how to do so challenge them to work on sequences of commands rather than a few at a time.
Most of their puppy training has used food as a reward. We even mentioned that during your puppy’s adolescence phases to incorporate more food as a way to get their attention! Actually, this is a great time to start to wean them off of being rewarded every time, once you have their focus. The reality is, you won’t always carry a treat bag with you so you want your puppy to listen regardless.
Help wean your puppy off of food by working with them through longer sequences of commands. For example, you can use “Place” patterning routines asking your puppy to go to their place, and have them, “Sit”, “Stay” then “Come” to you and even go to another place target. You can repeat this pattern of sequences a few times before rewarding your puppy with food, slowly growing the amount of duration between performing a routine and their reward.
Not only will you work to wean your puppy off of food rewards but this is an opportunity to remove other support tools you’ve utilized to help them work through commands: leash-pressure, luring with food and interchanging verbal and hand signals for commands instead of using both every time.
What to Keep Working On As Your Puppy Grows into an Adult Dog
In new situations, such as bringing your puppy to a new park or to a friend’s yard, your puppy’s obedience may need to fall back on the full support of food, leash pressure, luring, and verbal and hand signals you were using early on in their puppy training. But this doesn’t mean that they have regressed in their training or that you failed! It’s normal for your puppy to test their boundaries all over again in new settings, whereas at home or a place they know, your puppy already built up foundational obedience behaviors and muscle memory so they know what to expect.
Keep Consistent with Their Puppy Training
As your puppy continues to mature, you should continue to practice their basic obedience, building their duration, distance, and working through distractions. Maintain regular puppy training schedule as you normally would in each new setting you bring them.
Go Back to Rewarding Before Weaning
While it may sound like we are telling you to take a step back, you aren’t! Go back to rewarding your puppy for each command, especially in a new place or when you begin long lead work outdoors. You need to help build up their foundational obedience in those settings as they work through a new stimulus that’s pulling their focus. When you’ve had a few sessions with their regular amount of food reward and other support techniques, then start to take a few away.
Don’t Throw Away Your Puppy’s Daily Schedule
Some owners make the mistake of loosening up on their puppy’s daily schedule because their puppies are close to that ten-month-old or year mark. Many times, around this time frame, puppies may start to have accidents in the house or do other behaviors that they normally wouldn’t. Your puppy’s daily schedule is their guidebook and how they know what to expect and what’s expected of them! Maintain their regular potty breaks, feedings, playtime sessions, downtimes, and training sessions all throughout their adolescence.
Above all, remember that your puppy training is working and to rely on the work that you’ve already put in place to help you get through more challenging days! Your puppy is growing up and becoming an adult, they will continue to look to you for leadership and guidance!
Is your puppy showing signs of adolescent behavior? Do you feel like you need more help understanding how to work through their changes and adapting their training? Join us every Wednesday at 1 pm PT on @thepuppyacademy Instagram for a live trainer Q&A!
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