Our boy Jesse is turning 8 month on Jan 1, and the last 2 -3 weeks he has not been listing at all. I worked for 2 weeks on him to sit and lets me put his collar and leash on. He did very well and got a small treat along with a nice walk. The last few days he jumps and goes for the leash, actually worse then before. Nothing has changed at home. He also started his digging and rock fetish again lol. He is not unsupervised in the back yard and we play fetch and other games with both separate. I read a lot that they act like this when they between 7 - 12 month. Any ideas and tips would be appreciated.
What is your dog's routine? Does he go to class? Is he starting a sport - e.g. gundog, agility, obedience, scentwork, flyball etc.? How is he doing off lead, outside your garden? Have you managed to get him focussed and engaged with you? I would say the best thing for a teenage dog to do is start the preparation work for whatever kind of training, events etc. they are going to do in the future. It's not really that they are 'teenagers' it's more that they are no longer puppies, and yes, all those easy to come by puppy behaviours are now over, and it's not so much starting training again from scratch as starting training for real.
