ROAR Dog Training
Adolescent
What has happened? The cute, adorable, responsive, what seemed like a trainable dog. . . has all gone out the window.
Not listening, rebelling, doing whatever they choose, losing the leadership role, focus on walks, developing undesirable behaviours . . . sound familiar? These are the teenage years . . . when your gorgeous puppy starts turning into a dog. Their ‘dog-onality’ starts shining through, with all the associated and very normal hormone changes kicking in. Your furry baby is growing up and is already starting to challenge you to establish their role in the pack.
These are the most fundamental years to be consistent and follow through with your dog training. It is not the time to give up, despite whatever other dog training you have done or attended, and think your dog is untrainable. This is one of the most vital training terms in your dog’s life and it’s also when big mistakes are made by owners, despite or because of the challenges. This is where the reinforcement and repetition of what you have already done thus far are so important, or the pivotal time to engage a professional dog trainer.
Giving up now will reinforce that your dog’s current behaviour is acceptable, so they will continue to do and enhance such. Remember, your dog is just being a dog in its instinctual nature and what you accept and allow in their behaviour, without boundaries and rules, will become the baseline of the years to come.
So, to explain the misconception, quite often, it’s not the dogs’ fault, as they are just being a dog, that’s what they do best! It’s what you have allowed to happen, that becomes the foundation of acceptable behaviour in the dogs’ mind. You may have also probably and unknowingly praised them and allowed them to get away with the behaviour (mostly because they are so cute), so they will continue to try to please you with such!
Establishing confident leadership, the ‘Pack Leader’ role during this time is fundamental for the ‘Pack’ and family unit. It is the foundation, boundaries and expectations for the long term, including the safety of your dog and family. By establishing leadership, we provide safety, security and structure. Dogs that establish pack leader roles in the family unit, can and usually end up with reactive behaviours when challenged, even if that is unknowingly from a part of your family. It can be a very simple trigger that will result in a very unfavourable result.
ROAR Dog Training seeks to educate you about the instinctual nature of a dogs’ mind and how to ‘Become Their Confident Leader’. Most dogs will willingly hand over the leadership role, to a confident leader. It’s a big job for them, but you need to learn what the simple boundaries and rules are to establish and maintain such.
What you allow them to get away with or unknowingly reward, will continue and escalate, unless you rectify with appropriate training, consistency, consequence and reward.
Reactive, Obedience, Adolescent, Rescue (ROAR) Dog Training are here.
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Learn to recognise and appropriately action these behaviours before they turn into dominant and reactive issues, whilst instilling safety, security and appropriate structure.
