I have a 7 month old lab who for the last couple of weeks has been very difficult to do any training with, even things he was previously good at seem impossible at the moment. When any sort of training commences he starts to jump, lunge, bite at clothes, whine and bark, he never used to do this and I don't know why things have changed. I don't know if he is over excited or frustrated or both. I carry out his training in a low distraction environment and have a range of rewards for him. An example of this behaviour can be seen with "touch"; he learnt to hand touch when he was a few months old, he would nudge my palm (not particularly gently) but it was always with his nose, he would sit and wait for his reward. Now, when I show him my palm, he lunges, bites my hand and touches with his mouth not his nose. He gets no reward and if I try again he leaps all over, tugging at any part of my clothes he can whilst whining. This happens with every aspect of training, I have gone back to basic trying to work on good manners around treats but even that results in the same behaviour. I can't seem to get a training session off the ground because of this and we have gone so far backwards I don't know how to get it back on track.
Hey, Im not at the teenager stage with our lab yet, but many on here are. and do notice a backward step in previously well learnt behavior - I am sure they will be along soon with advice and if you trawl hard enough you may find posts of people in the same boat Good luck and welcome to the forum x
7 months is around the time behaviours you thought were "trained" regress as your puppy becomes more independent. I found the most obvious regression in recall around 8-9 months. It sounds like your pup may be excited and/or frustrated by what you are training. Do you use a clicker? When Quinn was younger (and still sometimes) she would get frustrated or bored at training class and throw out behaviours in attempts to figure out what I was asking of her (especially if I wasn't asking her to do anything but settle) - she would try sitting, a paw and a hand touch. When she really wanted her treat, she would lunge at my hand, and open mouth hand touch a lot of the time. She was just riled up. Quinn is 15 months and I still have training sessions where she gets over excited or distracted or frustrated and I simply get her attention back on me and we do some very easy things, like sit or down and she gets a reward then we build back up to what we were working on. Other times it's a sign that she needs a break and I stop (signaled by saying "all done" and I put away clicker/tug toy/treats). There are lots of helpful articles on the main site you might want to check out.
Thank you for your reply. Yes, I use a clicker but sometimes I think when Wilson sees it the excitement sets in already. When doing "touch" I get the first one as a nose touch but anything after is an open mouthed lunge. I have just started randomly asking for a touch and rewarding rather than setting it up as a session in which the anticipation builds. My training sessions have gone down to very very short sessions Eg. 30 seconds in some cases before he can start getting frustrated/excited. It helps to know others are experiencing this and I guess it will be a case of controlling the excitement for the moment rather than focusing on new behaviour. Thanks again and I will have a look through other posts on the forum.
Your dog is now officially an adolescent and like human teenagers their main aim in life seems to be as difficult as possible and apparently gave forgotten everything they appeared to have learnt as a young pup. Your adolescent is now more independent in thought and deed from that lovely pup you had but fear not, the training is not forgotten. Just keep on with your training, even go back to basics again and refresh it all. When training make sure that your treats are in a pot and do not reach for a treat until after you have clicked or used your marker word and avoid having a treat in your hand which encourages a dig to 'mug' you for it.
Thank you, he certainly is being difficult at times and he gets more bold by the day! It makes sense to keep the treats out of the way, I will do that in future.
What you are doing by going back to basics but stopping before over excitement steps in is right. Vary your commands as you walk along ask for a sit, a down or a touch sometimes without a food reward but just a "Good, boy!" Then walk on, maybe later ask for something else. Also a good time to reinforce recall in the same way but not always for a treat but sometimes something really tasty, vary his too, sometimes just some kibble. Always stop if he gets over excited and become really boring.
