Molly, lovely destructive 10 month old Molly is in the throngs of adolescence. Jumping up, ignoring me, chewing everything, pulling on the lead so much that I can't control her (no more coming on the school run, it's to embarrassing!) she's become fussy with food for the first time ever, chasing joggers, barking at random people. Yesterday she realised the fence around the pond was only puppy proof and had a great time destroying the plants and splashing around before I saw her. She's even managed to chew a hole in the parquet floor, the coffee table has become her toy.....Love her to bits but will this continue until she's 2?! Goodness knows how many people say 'ah a lab, you just have to get through the first 2 years and then you'll have a lovely dog'. Yeah, thanks for that!
I found Harley calmed down at about 13 months, after she had her spay. I don't know if was because she had hit the age to calm down or because she had emergency spay and twisted hernia. The pulling has never really stopped - in places I have proofed she is fantastic, but new places she is a nightmare still. She can still be head strong when she wants, but is so much calmer. She still has her moments (she's 3 now), but I wouldn't have her any other way.
I think a lot of Labs are high energy dogs and benefit from something in addition to normal walks - agility, flyball, gundog training etc. Why not try one of these? For me, gundog training for 6 months from around 9 months of age had a real knock-on effect on general behaviour -perhaps just because it gave a focus to our daily training. My Molly is a real couch potato at home (she's three) and loves a long morning lie-on but she gets a minimum of two one-hour walks a day (off-lead)plus training/play plus two training classes a week. Until she was two years old she had three walks a day, totalling 2hours.
Wait for the day she calms down. Then you'll be running to vet thinking she must be sick!! It does come - all beings grow up, dogs and kids. Some just take a little longer, Labs apparently longer than most.
Umm, good and bad news! We are starting agility classes in January's hopefully at least Wednesdays are covered!
This is me and Bonnie at the moment, I could have written this myself, exactly the same, she’s such a teenage handful! Bonnie is 10 months and doing all of that. So, seeing as your post was a while ago, I’m wondering how Molly is now, when did she turn a corner and grow up a little? Ta
