Lately I've noticed my puppy isn't trying to get me to play as much. She definitely still plays and I'm not worried about her being too tired or unwell, but she's not doing things like grabbing forbidden objects and running away to get me to chase her or just crawling on me until I wrestle around with her (I know I shouldn't reward her for that stuff by "playing" per se). In fact, she doesn't seem to be "challenging" me as much either. Before, if I was eating or making food she would stand and bark at me or if I told her to "get down" or in any way stop what she was doing it was a big brouhaha. She seems to be more comfortable with chilling out and doing her own thing - even at the park. She's even letting me pet her more - before any hands coming near her anywhere was an invitation to play and roughhouse. She's nearly 9 months now, is that about the age when dogs start to grow out of some of those crazy puppy antics?
It certainly sounds that way, yes They grow up so fast! (Although the biting stage can feel rather slow at the time....) It is possible when dogs are unwell that they will have behavioural changes, so it's sensible to keep an eye and make sure that she's still behaving like her usual self in other ways, but it sounds from those examples like she's just maturing
Well, she was kinda acting up yesterday (grabbing pillows she knows she shouldn't and chewing various things) - I may have spoken too soon! She's getting spayed on Monday so I'll bring it up to the vet (along with my usual million questions). She seems to be making progress just recently though, and I'm praying she's getting past the worst of her puppy stuff. Everybody I've asked has said their puppies started calming down at around a year and I'm hoping this is the beginning of that. Maybe it's the training I've been working on, or the fact that I've been purposely ignoring her for stretches. She was a real hellion for the first couple of months. My family could barely stand to be around her! I'll keep my fingers crossed.
My pup is about the same age. He has changed in the past few weeks, like you are describing, calmer around food and allowing more petting. He is still maniac self outside and does not like to be out of the centre of attention, and still has to be on a leash indoors (but now he mostly drags it, since he stopped jumping counters), but things are looking a lot better.
