Hi All Oscar is our beautiful black Labrador that we got at 8 weeks old and he is now 5 months old. He is doing really well and learnt all the basic commands such as sit, down, wait and paw. However these last few weeks he has regressed slightly and no longer always listens, no longer sits on command or really do anything. Is this just normal adolescence? Nothing changed or happened. thanks, all support welcome
Hello and welcome to the forum! It sounds like pretty standard adolescence to me! Try to prevent him self-rewarding by ignoring you (so for example, start using a long line on walks again so that he can't reward himself for ignoring your recall by chasing a squirrel, and don't ask him to sit if you know he's going to ignore you and do something else which makes having ignored you rewarding). You might need to take all your training back a few steps, and build up again, but as long as you stay consistent, and he doesn't learn that ignoring you is more fun than listening to you, then he'll pass out the other side of adolescence in due course. I know quite a lot of people (me included) found some aspects of adolescence harder than the very young puppy stage - but it does pass!
