Trying to relax out in the garden a little while ago, towards the end of a busy day, Molly trotting happily with us - then - oh boy ! Full cracker-dog mode sets in. She roars round the lawn, grabbing mouthfuls of slightly longer grass, hurtles across the flower borders, tearing up all before her - then back on the lawn, several wide grand prix speed circles, a thundering leap into the (fortunately empty and lidless) coldframe, crashes out of there, back round the side path, across the bottom of the lawn and into the house I think at almost 6 months, the hooligan stage is just setting in. Fingers crossed for us please !
Haha oh wow! I'm sad Axel doesn't have these hooligan outbursts anymore. He hasn't had one since about 4 months old and they were so funny to watch (also nerve racking! Especially when he would jump up and nip my bum) Although if he were to have one now at 9 months old, I can picture utter destruction everywhere he goes haha
Oh, I feel just the same! You have described exactly what 7 month old Bailey has begun to do! But, he's doing this in our lounge room at 7.30 at night, every night this week! We have tried distracting him with toys,games and food. No difference. Changing the time we go through into the lounge, no difference. Going back to basic training,no difference. Cracker-dog is a very apt description, and just last night he added biting at my toes on the way past. He connects at times and it hurts. Apart from the fact that it is definitely not on that he is doing this in the house. He is a full fledged teenage hooligan for half an hour, then he settles back to being our cool, calm Bailey. He cools and calms a lot quicker than we do! I sure hope that this phase is short lived
Train a really strong interrupter cue. My 'normal' interrupter (or attention getting cue) is a tongue click. It's enough to stop my adult dog from just about anything these days (in his normal life, it won't stop him if he is running amok at gundog training ). But with my new puppy, who is obsessed by trying to get Charlie to play, I needed something stronger. So my interrupter for a 3.5 year old dog, and a 5.5 month old hooligan when they both decide to crash around playing/chasing/doing mutual zoomies is a raised fist and the cue 'ready!'. When they both stop, sit and look at me I throw a handful of kibble down with the cue 'find it' and then they compete to find the kibble (obviously, as time has gone on, I can cue other things, I don't have to throw kibble). It took a lot of repetitions in the kitchen and garden and training field for this to be very strong, but it will now stop them both in mad out play/chase/crazy mode.
I also have "ready" as an interruptor, although it was a bit of an accident. I just use "ready....steady..." as a precursor to asking for a behaviour when we're mucking around and playing. So "ready" has become the cue that exciting things are going to happen. I found out from doing this, that I can stop bum-tuck zoomies mid flow, with "reaaaaaaaddddyyyyyy...." and then cue them to start again with a "GO!". Hugely entertaining
Oh I like this idea of throwing the food on the floor! That is a useful idea! It might give me time to escape since my 8 month old ends it by lunging up at me and snapping. I am going to try this while adding in an interrupter word. Like HELP! As this is not fun.
