Bagheera is now 9 months old and I'm finding him getting difficult he's not really listening or interested in me. Trying to work with him he don't want to know. I can have treats with me but he just don't want to know.
Ahh! You have hit the teenage months where our well-behaved puppies can suddenly become quite challenging. This is not uncommon and does coincide with that age where as dog owners, we often take our eye off the ball. Generally, at this age, everything becomes very exciting as our puppies morph into young adults, this makes it hard for us as we subsequently become less interesting! The best advice is to go back a few paces in your training. You mention boundaries, so what situations are you having difficulty in exactly? @Vicci ? A useful article: https://www.thelabradorsite.com/how-to-cope-with-a-naughty-labrador
When asking him to leave he would drop whatever it was he had or leave people alone now he doesn't. He's started jumping up. Out of my depth with him. Thought the worst was over thinking of going back to puppy class. Will have a look at the article thank you
Yep, as @Beanwood says, it's a perfectly normal developmental stage. Your dog isn't really "pushing boundaries", it's just that you're not the most exciting thing in his environment anymore. This means you just have to go back a stage or two. Basically, whenever your dog doesn't respond to you, it's either because he doesn't understand or he isn't properly motivated. At this age, with his environment becoming so much more distracting to him as his hormones are surging and he is learning to become more independent, you need to keep in mind that was once easy is now really difficult for him. He's not testing you, he's finding it harder, that's all. So it's your job to recognise that and make the task easier again before building it up incrementally. Imagine it in the context of having a phone conversation in a quiet room. It's easy to concentrate and to understand the person on the other end of the line. But then more and more people come into the room you're in, all talking loudly to one another and to you, trying to get your attention. You're now struggling to hear the person on the line and to concentrate on that one person. The task you're being asked to do hasn't changed; the person on the line may get frustrated because what they are asking you to do - pay attention to them - hasn't changed at all. Yet your environment has, and that makes it so much harder for you to perform the same simple task as you could before. Bagheera's environment is getting noisy and trying to distract his attention, just like the room full of people. The person on the phone could make it easier for you by talking in shorter sentences in clear tones, being directive and precise, and that would set you up for success despite your environment. That's what you need to do. Be very clear and precise, set your dog up for success. The fact you can't see the "people in the room" with him doesn't mean they're not there. Imagine it was your boss on the phone and he suddenly mentioned a nice pay rise. Do you think you'd be able to focus more effectively then? I'm pretty sure that most people would be able to tune out their environment better and focus on the conversation given that incentive. You're suddenly properly motivated. If you knew that for every person that came into that room, you would get an extra bonus for each task your boss on the phone laid out, you would soon be able to train yourself to filter out the noise and concentrate on what was being said. Imagine how much easier it would be to achieve this if the people entered the room one at a time, compared to all in one go. I'm loving this analogy, you can probably tell So, the key points: 1. Just because you can't see the people have come into the room, it doesn't mean they're not very real and distracting to Bagheera. His environment is far more distracting than it used to be, and so it's hard for him to concentrate on you. 2. It's easier for him to listen if you're clear and directive. We can become a bit sloppy with our cues. Use cue discrimination tasks to work out if what you think is the cue (likely a verbal cue) is what he understands. In your living room, try giving the cue with your arms crossed, or with your back turned, or laying on the floor. If he can't perform the cues like this, then what you believe to be the cue isn't what he is understanding. You're probably using your body language and that can be altered by your environment and emotional state. Re-train the cues being very clear about what you mean and testing his understanding in easy environments by changing the picture. 3. If he's properly motivated, he will be able to focus better. This doesn't mean bribing, although briefly revisiting luring to help him understand what you're after won't hurt. At this age, because we assume "he knows it", we can become lax with rewarding and this damages our reinforcement history at an age where we need it more. Increase the value and frequency of your rewards. The harder the task you're asking for (including making the environment harder), the better the reward should be. Make sure you are using what he actually finds rewarding, not what you think he should. Inspect your body language. Are you giving a food reward alongside flat or frustrated body language? Smile with your eyes, tell him how clever he is when he does something - and mean it! - alongside giving food or toy rewards. 4. Let the people into the room slowly, rather than en masse. Increase the level of distraction incrementally and slowly to set him up for success. Go back to your kitchen to cement the behaviours you're teaching before taking them into the garden, then the street, then the park.
Jumping up is often a sign of frustration in an adolescent. Making tasks easier and making sure you're being absolutely clear as crystal with your cues (this doesn't mean shouting them - it means practicing the cue discrimination exercises as above) will help alleviate any frustration he is feeling.
Wow, thanks Snowbunny for both sets of comments! You're so knowledgeable. Although I wasn't the one asking, good stuff for me with my teenager (1 year old pup). Good to be encouraged.
