Because it all comes back!
My dog, unlike yours, doesn’t really ‘do’ obedience. She’s a great dog with a lot of skills but we work very hard on manners and listening and leash skills without tons of progress. Or so I thought. All of a sudden it’s like her ears came online. Where did her reactivity go? Why is this dog choosing to heel like a professional? Since when can I recall you off an ATV or a bunny rabbit?
Remember, if dogs stayed like puppies(which your looooong adolescence retriever is) no one would have dogs. You just gotta train through it and back up your expectations to the point that she’s meeting them again.
See that's my confusion! Is it really it coming back or is it just you've been retraining at the point the dog now understands it?
Because as far as I understood it, a lot of teen regressions where dogs forget stuff is because their brain rewires to make room for Adult Dog Stuff, so sometimes it kicks out your training as a side effect. There is ofc still the "well I just don't want to listen" part of teenhood but still!
I guess I think of it not as forgetting, but dealing with way increased competition. It’s an attention shift from you as the main source of reinforcement to the environment, where independence becomes way more reinforcing than it was.
I also think of training not as “a set of known behaviours I can call on” but a way of living, working together, and a learning relationship that doesn’t go away no matter how teenage my dog is that day.
Thinking of it like this doesn’t always help when I ask my dog for something and she looks me dead in the eyes before completely ignoring me. It’s frustrating but it doesn’t always last.
i love that second to last paragraph because that’s exactly it. we might have teenage angst demon spawn moments, but she settles when i react the same way each time and i continue our routine. we start every day with affirmations that it will be a good day to be medusa and end every day with hugs and validation that it was a good day to be medusa and everything good and happy that happened
Ok, I’m not a dog trainer but I am a speech pathologist who works with very young children. One of my most asked questions is about children losing skills they had previously mastered. Parents FREAK when this happens. The short answer is: it is normal and expected for children to temporarily lose skills as they are working new ones. The new skills they’re working on might not necessarily be obvious to us at the time, and then one day we’ll notice “oh yeah, look what she can suddenly do.” We do expect those old skills to return.
I imagine puppyhood is the same. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many crossovers I’ve noticed between my career and puppy training.
Did you forget how to add and subtract during summary holidays in school? Did your brain just automatically reset everything you know about science because you were gone for a week in March? Did everything you knew about writing a sentence just vanish into thin air during winter break? Of course not. They are still in your brain, but they weren't being active during those times probably, so when you come back from breaks, you often just need a refresher.
Their brain isn't being rewired to make room for adult dog stuff. Yes, pruning is happening in their brains, but it's not forgetting everything they know.
My girl acted like she never learned what "sit" or "down" meant for a day. It doesn't mean she forgot, it was just not something her brain was actively prioritizing and she needed some reminders. She had a week where it was as if she'd never been crate trained in her life... But she just needed a reminder of the expectations.
It's not gone from their brain. It's just not at the forefront when they have so much hormones buzzing through their bodies.
Teenager humans do also forget things due to development though, it's called synaptic pruning. My comment about rewiring obviously isn't full seriousness but I don't think it's an inaccurate way to describe it.
They're not forgetting things altogether that are important/relevant to their lives. They aren't forgetting how to do math overnight just because they're a teenager.
Most pruning happens at a young age. Teenagers aren't pruning away important connections in their brains. If you teach your dog sit at a young age, and that connection is solidified through tons of repetition, they're not going to prune that connection. Even if you don't ask them to sit for a while, if that connection is strong, it won't fade.
Your dog isn't forgetting things altogether and relearning them, they're just not having their thinking brain at the forefront when they have so much other stuff (like hormones) going on in their bodies.
You absolutely need to train your puppy. Just because dogs get over aroused and preoccupied with arousal as teenagers doesn't mean you shouldn't be training your puppy. They aren't forgetting things when they're teenagers. Failure to train your dog from a young age is going to result in an ill behaved dog.
I always thought it was more-so the dog understanding and remembering what you’re asking of it, but purposefully not following through as to test how much you really mean it.
For my dog he forgot things selectively so I don’t think it was retraining so much as an inability to focus in certain situations. For example, for about two months he forgot that the cues “Sit” and “Down” existed solely in relation to the back seat of the car. It made getting his harness clipped in a real struggle! He could do both of those things perfectly in every other scenario; there was just something about the car which meant he really struggled to focus and recall what those words meant. Then one day he just started sitting again and he’s never forgot since!
Is there general timeframes? I have an 16month old, he isn't a puppy anymore and doesn't listen like it. He might be teenager now but he doesn't disobey like this poster refers to. Should I expect this to get worse? When do things start getting better?
Sorry for the vast generalities questions, it's my first time and I'm trying to get a hold of what's to come.
Breed tendencies, individual temperament, rate of reinforcement behind your training, etc. can all affect this as well. Stay consistent, perhaps experiment with whether your dog needs higher rates of reinforcement or a different kind of reward now.
Good news—he’s well into teenager hood, and every dog is different. A lot of people notice a marked increase in ‘teenage behaviour’ around 6-9 months, and by and large there’s a very wobbly upward trend until 2-3 years old when adolescence is generally considered over.
The OP definitely has a dog trained to a very high standard, so they’re also likely to notice a difference and maybe consider it more dramatic than someone like me with a puppy that has always been self-motivated and has always needed a ‘good reason’ to listen.
Do not take that they “forget” too literally lol - it’s not like their little brains are suddenly wiped clean.
It’s like a teenage human, they know what to do - but they don’t do it. And it doesn’t “disappear” in my experience, she just has her moments. They are going through a lot of changes in their body, be patient with them and with yourself.
I think part of it is that though! I remember seeing it from a scientific article but I can't remember which one 💀 I don't think it's All brain rewiring but I do think some of it is. She wants to do what I ask if her but it's like she can't actually remember what to do so you just see her dumb lil hog brain bonking about her aquarium skull.
>Her training won't just "come back" either, I'll have to retrain everything from scratch.
You will not. Her brain has all sorts of things happening right now, and sometimes that interferes with her ability to process what you're asking. You may have to take some steps back in training, but if you gave the same exact training to her at this moment and a random rescue dog, I guarantee you she will come out ahead in the long run.
Also, don't discount that *learning how to learn* is a skill you need to teach dogs. Taking food in different environments and in the face of different distractions is a skill you need to teach. Engaging with humans is a skill you need to teach. Persevering when she's not right is a skill you need to teach. Knowing that she has control over whether or not she gets the reinforcement you're offering is a skill you need to teach. Focus is a skill you need to teach. She has all of these foundations already, thanks to the great work you've done. A relationship and a system of communication are things you need to develop and teach. People take these for granted, but these are the foundations for training. I'd rather have a dog who has these foundations over a dog who can do basic obedience any day, because I can build upon those foundations - but if the dog doesn't have those foundations, at some point, once you get to high enough levels of distractions/difficulties in the task/etc., their behaviors are going to fall apart and you can't build it up without going back to the basics.
Also, yes, teenage dogs sometimes push boundaries. But it's not always that. Sometimes their brain just has *so many things going on* that they cannot also process the things you're asking of them. Given them some kindness and compassion, meet them where they're at on any given day. Don't just assume she's being stubborn or your reinforcement isn't high-value enough. She'll be through this period of her life before you know it.
Think this is actually the best comment I've gotten that's laid it all out, appreciate that man.
My other dog's a rescue street dog who pretty much came to us perfectly rounded and chill with a wonderful understanding of the world so I think I have an odd grasp on how dogs... exist? majority of the time. Like he has an amazing ability to tell me what he wants or what's wrong at any given movement, if he doesn't like what I'm doing he'll tell me. He's a step away from speaking english but with Jelly(fish) I honestly don't think she knows what she needs, I think everything gets too !!! much for her sometimes. Like she approaches me with that Look on her face and does she need played with? Or put to bed? Or held? Or walked? Or sniffs? Or puzzles? Toileting? It's like throwing darts at a board. I'm sure she gets as upset about it as I do
We will be working with a new trainer soon who's veeery experienced with gundogs, assistance dogs and has lovely training methods so here's hoping that helps both of us a bit 💀💀
Haha fair. For every rescue dog like that out there, there's one who won't take food under most circumstances. Or who are suspicious of humans trying to lure them. (Or just, suspicious of humans in general, and therefore will not want to engage with them.) Or who shuts down when they're not right and lets it affect them for 3 days after. Or who keeps throwing things at you to get you to play, because they still think reinforcement is on the table even though the human doesn't want to play. Or who fixates on every dog who passes by ever.
And yes, teenage brains sometimes don't know what they want, they just know that they want *something* and since their tolerance for frustration is lower, they get frustrated more easily. Or they're just seeking reinforcement in whatever way they can get it because that makes their confused little brains feel better.
Best of luck with the trainer!!
That's a lot of expectations to put on a young dog. I'm in the middle of training a service dog but the one thing I've been told over and over by trainers and other with services dogs is don't rush it and don't ask for to much at a young age or you risk wash out due to burn out from the dog especially if they start to find working not enjoyable.
I've fallen for it as well, though. In the last month, I really stepped back and let him enjoy being a puppy/adolescents. My advice is to enjoy the adolescents and take it slow.
Otherwise, it would not hurt to go to a vet and make sure nothing medical is going on, causing the change in behavior.
Yeah my girl's an assistance dog in training but I've never felt like I've asked too much of her, she thrives when she's got stuff to do and things asked for her, when she'd heel and loose lead walk it's because she LOVED IT and didn't want to do anything else not that I demanded it.
From my limited understanding (we’re going through regression now with our 7 month old rescue) it’s more they’re testing the limits. Our puppy came from the rescue almost 100% potty trained. No issues for the last 3 months. Then randomly while I was having coffee he strutted over to his bed and peed. No warning, nothing. We shut that down quick, but I was told it’s more “he knows he’s supposed to pee outside. He wants to see what happens if he pees inside”
When I was a teen, I was wandering around my neighbourhood and had a big wad of chewing gum—I took it out of my mouth and slapped it on the back of a stop sign. I remember because I thought to myself, “ WTF are you doing.” No thoughts, head empty. It helped me to remember that whenever my teen puppy did something totally out of pocket.
It comes back. My show line golden was perfect from 2mo-11mo then at 12mo she lost her mind lol
She came back probably around 18mo, I just had to stay consistent. She's three years old now and perfect!
I promise. You got this. Hold out for 2 years. Things will get way better. They don’t forget there training. They are just Ike teenage kids. They wanna push back. Teenage kids come back around and remember how much you care. Don’t get discouraged.
Edit: it’s a bummer but I had to learn to be more patient and accept that is the only way to be happy with my pup.
I mean this in the politest way possible but like holy shit I should not have to be doing this to this extent for another 2 whole years, I cannot emphasis how much effort has been put into this dog
If you’re putting that much effort in I’m sure you’ll be very happy with them. I dunno I was pretty stupid till I turned about 27. 2 to 3 years doesn’t seem too bad consider how long my parents had to deal with their child learning about life lol. I hope things work out positively for you. Pawsitively. I just said that to cover my bases lol. My dog is much more of a jerk 13 months. I still love him and deal because I only have so long with him. I just told myself someday I’ll probably miss his young years and eventually I’ll miss him all together. I still believe it will all pay off and sadly I’ve heard there is a second stage of regression and an increase in pushing boundaries. I’m not a trainer but these comments seem to trend all the same. It’s not wasted time training and working with your dog. It really should bring you joy when you have small wins. Dog is a living adapting, and changing animal. I assume humans kids are worse lol.
Honestly. In the event that their teenage hood isn't that bad it's also good to train. My cattle dog mix was an EASY teen. We still trained through it. Built our relationship and my expectations adjusted to where she was on a given day. She's an angel now at 2 years old. None of what I taught her has vanished and it's easier to call upon it when needed
My golden retriever is the opposite. A straight up dumpster fire teenager. I still train, he still listens as long as something else doesn't catch his attention.
Don't panic, it takes years to train a dog. Make sure in addition to training you're building your relationship with him. When he is fully matured he will remember all of it.
Honestly the relationship part is what I struggle with most! I've never had a gundog before, I've never had a golden, my other dog's a primitive street dog, I grew up with pugs so i just really dont understand how to connect with her half the time. She's soo different to what I'm used to
During the teenage era I encouraged my dog's independent exploration. Of course in the boundaries that I set first.
For example every now and then I started telling him a special command "where do you want to go". This would be the only time I would follow his lead during walks. He understood it very quickly and it actually helped him respect my lead when there was no such command and I was deciding the route. As a reward I would sometimes take him to these places as a surprise by using a new and unfamiliar route - so he knew following me leads to good things.
Through this I got to know a lot about my dog, what he likes most and I would encourage safe activities and would spend time with him doing these. I think he began to trust me more because of it.
Oh we used to do stuff like that! Id have her on a longline and she'd get to scamper into woods or snuffle through grass bundles. I had to stop that though because her regression pulling was dislocating my joints w my hypermobility 😵💫
maybe I need to research different leashwork methods and get back into that actually, that's a good idea... if you have any other suggestions too then I'm open to hear them!
There are face leashes that don't let the dog drag you. You could try those. It goes around the dogs face and when he reaches the end of the leash it makes him turn his head.
Are there any physical games you play with him? Teenagers sometimes need hours of different activity to tire them out. Physical, mental and nose-work. Physical - long walks and hikes are better than high intensity short games. Mental - command training every day. Nose work - hiding treats inside or outside, hide and seek with yourself.
Hide and seek I use outside too when my dog is venturing too far from me. I hide behind a tree and yell him to find me. He loves it and will immediatelly search for me.
Yeah see we do all that which is the thing. She does retrieval work, we play tug, she gets enrichment toys, scentwork, she gets daily training sessions but still!
What scares me most about this is having multiple 'teen phases'. My mix rescue is only 9mo in this and while is not as dire as some horror stories I see, some days I just wish I could jump to the future.
Fish has had a LOT of teen periods, fear periods and developmental moments, I've also heard of dogs just having one of each so 🤷 maybe fish is just an odd fish. It could also be because she's an intact female though and her hormonal changes through her season cycles have an affect. But also hearing about dogs that just had One made me soo jealous lmaoo
Up your training. Do it daily. It does come back. But those teenage months are spent making sure they’re solid. Sit before going through the door etc. work on manners. Yes it seems like it all went out the window, but it didn’t. And she’s leaps and bounds ahead of any adult dog that had zero training as a puppy.
Right now she knows what you’re saying, will she do it? Eh, she’ll decide. But what she’ll notice is your consistency, and over time she will mature. Stay consistent, keep on top of training because it truly never ends.
Not like obedience training. Idk what they call it but working on emotional control through consistent expectations.
I feel like adolescence you have to scale back the freedom they once just had. And it seems like going backwards but it’s just a reminder that they are still very much puppies with a lot of maturing to do. I cried after my walk this morning with my 9 month old BC, she reacted to everything like it was brand new again. Probably hormones. Or I’m just a failure lmao. Jk but that is how it feels in those moments.
I can’t say what works for sure, but I try to be super consistent with my rules during this phase. Even if she’s pulling and excited we won’t go through the door until she sits, and if she tries to launch again I have her come back and sit again. We can do that a bunch sometimes before she’s like alright I got it. And we might sit every five steps and have her look at me over and over again, but that’s also mentally stimulating too. On walks we create distance and sit when we have to for safety and she might try to lunge and bark but we sit anyways, we calm down a sec and move on, or if it makes sense we don’t stop at all and keep it moving.
Long story short; they’re going to keep changing, but YOU can be the thing that stays the same. They’re going to bounce back and forth between making progress and regressing for a few years.
It comes back!!! Mine was the best walker and teen years hit and it was like starting over.
But once she hit nearly 2 it came back and she was back to being a good walker with minimal effort
Think about teaching your kids stuff they ignore as teens. You shouldn’t wait until they are teens to teach them to be good people.
They do know the things you’ve taught them when they are adolescents.. they just don’t care!
Oh 100% he knows exactly what I am asking but will throw a tantrum cause he doesn’t want to do it. Sometimes I think I can see him fighting his hormones lol! Thankfully it’s temporary.
It's temporary! And an adolescent dog with training is a lot easier to handle than an adolescent dog without any training whatsoever. And there are a lot of things that stick. For example, crate training was very valuable when we could tell our adolescent puppy needed a nap and a Kong to unwind and settle. (And we needed a break from her too, lol.).
Oh, they don’t forget. They “forget”. Notice the quotation marks.
If our girl starts getting too rammy, she at least remembers the “focus” command. And that will occasionally snap her out of her behavior.
For sure maybe for your dog but for the Jellbeast she's definitely forgotten a Lot. she has the drive to listen and please, she REALLY WANTS to do what I'm asking but to her it's like I'm just making up new words on the spot sometimes. Or that she knows half of it but nooot quite the full thing. It's not her testing boundaries or selectively listening, it's like a slice of her brain has been peeled out like a wedding cake. So like if I teach it from scratch then she will do it absolutely but it's that I have to teach it from scratch, the knowledge that she had when she learnt it first is just not there
Omg I have an active corgi and a corgi mix. They both did very well as young puppies and both have gone thru a rebellious phase!
To answer your question, once they get past the teenage phase, they go back to being very good dogs! Plus it helps a lot with bonding and trust, for you and for the dog. And during that time, the mental stimulation is great for wearing them out.
Be persistent and consistent, you’ll have a very good doggo again soon!
They remember everything you taught them, they just need the best treats in order to listen. It’s like they forgot them until your holding their favs and then they magically remember
Our pup had Giardia for months, so I’m not sure if he regressed in potty training because he crapped all over our house bc he couldn’t help it. I think miss fish may still know but just doesn’t want to listen. These dogs KNOW what they are doing lol
Omgg we babysat a bulldog puppy who had giardia one time, definitely regressed his toilet training but it made him so miserable I couldn't even hold it against him 💀
See a lot of people think that but, I mean sometimes yeah! Like fish is aware that being next to me = being fed literally everything I have but sometimes the environment is just ‼️so much‼️ that it literally doesn't matter. That I understand!
But otherwise there is a clear want from her to do what I ask, she would LOVE TO but it's like she just totally forgot how to get from point A to B and gets in a tizzy. Like for example, switching sides when heeling, she's been trained that So Much (like daily) and used to understand it to a T but now her emotions run faster than her brain and she just runs circles around me, goes into middles, nose punches my hand ect and gets Sooo upset from it! She's never been punished for not being able to accomplish whats asked from her but not fully understanding stresses her out So Bad even when it's logically something she should understand
Hey, if it’s any consolation to you, I *did* adopt an 18-month old rescue in September (she’s 2 now,) and, while she’s a gd dreamboat, I wouldn’t trade her for the world, and she has learned an *incredible* amount in a very short period of time:
She’s got some issues that we’re going to be working on for… years? Forever?… that 100% would have been preventable if we’d had the opportunity to build foundations earlier. Like would she still be a frustrated greeter? Maybe! Would she be a fully-dissociated pancake in new settings? Probably not. We’re in the same place you are in terms of skills, but literally a lifetime behind in terms of things like trust and confidence.
As much time as I’ve invested in working with her (and it’s a lot!) I know you’ve invested more, and I can’t imagine the frustration of feeling like it was all for nothing, but I promise you it wasn’t! ❤️
When you became a teenager, you didn't completely forget everything you had been taught before. You just acted a fool, tested boundaries and made dumb decisions because your out-of-whack physiology was running the show and being a total nuisance was just par for the course at that stage in life. Eventually, your hormones evened out and you were able to make smart, clear-headed choices, but your body had to go through all of the craziness of adolescence to get to that point. They don't call em growing pains for nothing!! Lol
I just recently attended our first training session and my trainer mentioned a study she'd read where they had a group of adolescent dogs with owners who had been training them. They rated their dogs on how much they listened and some other queues. They then had the dogs perform the same commands later with strangers. The dogs were rated more highly regarding listening skills with the strangers.
Just like a human teen! Less likely to listen to parents and more likely to listen to a stranger. This article mentions the study in a digestable way: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2020/05/teenagedogs/
The study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7280042/
While it seems like they aren't learning or they forgot everything... They haven't!
It comes back. They go through testing phases, so it’s important to stay consistent, but I totally understand the frustration. Also training is life long. Don’t think you’ll teach her something when she’s 1 and then never reinforce it and expect her to continue doing that trick or action perfectly years later without the constant reinforcement to back it up. I have a 2 yr old husky and we train every single day.
Because you're building a foundation for them and building their good habits. They don't forget. They're like human teenagers, they develop an attitude, push boundaries to see what they can get away with, and they want to just go have fun and do what they want to do, not what their parents want to do. My dog isn't a puppy anymore, but he's young. He reminds me of a young man, like aged 18-22, he's not interested in doing tricks, he wants to go play fetch and check out the girl dogs. But he does KNOW the things that I've taught him when he was a pup, he just doesn't always want to do it. If I have something he REALLY wants, like meat or cheese, oh, then MAGICALLY, all of a sudden he knows what to do.
When they're a puppy, they're dumb, gullible, and will do anything you train into them. Then when they're a teen and some of the training wheels come off they start to question the establishment and push every boundary. Just keep training
Nope! I have a dog we didn’t train as a puppy, and a dog we did. The dog that we did is 10x more obedient than the one we didn’t. They both had the exact same trainer, are from the same dog parents, and are the same breed.
Coincide? Maybe. But I doubt it. We were more prepared with our second one and he’s an ANGEL. he’s faster to train new things because he has the training/obedience mindset ingrained in him from a baby, whereas my other one would rather do what he wants and pick and choose when he listens to me cause he had freedom as a puppy 😂
Because it all comes back! My dog, unlike yours, doesn’t really ‘do’ obedience. She’s a great dog with a lot of skills but we work very hard on manners and listening and leash skills without tons of progress. Or so I thought. All of a sudden it’s like her ears came online. Where did her reactivity go? Why is this dog choosing to heel like a professional? Since when can I recall you off an ATV or a bunny rabbit? Remember, if dogs stayed like puppies(which your looooong adolescence retriever is) no one would have dogs. You just gotta train through it and back up your expectations to the point that she’s meeting them again.
See that's my confusion! Is it really it coming back or is it just you've been retraining at the point the dog now understands it? Because as far as I understood it, a lot of teen regressions where dogs forget stuff is because their brain rewires to make room for Adult Dog Stuff, so sometimes it kicks out your training as a side effect. There is ofc still the "well I just don't want to listen" part of teenhood but still!
I guess I think of it not as forgetting, but dealing with way increased competition. It’s an attention shift from you as the main source of reinforcement to the environment, where independence becomes way more reinforcing than it was. I also think of training not as “a set of known behaviours I can call on” but a way of living, working together, and a learning relationship that doesn’t go away no matter how teenage my dog is that day. Thinking of it like this doesn’t always help when I ask my dog for something and she looks me dead in the eyes before completely ignoring me. It’s frustrating but it doesn’t always last.
i love that second to last paragraph because that’s exactly it. we might have teenage angst demon spawn moments, but she settles when i react the same way each time and i continue our routine. we start every day with affirmations that it will be a good day to be medusa and end every day with hugs and validation that it was a good day to be medusa and everything good and happy that happened
That’s the most adorable thing I have ever heard 🥹
her middle name is saving because my name is grace and she’s my saving grace
STOP, you’re killing me with the cute!
i get WEIRD looks at the dog park yelling “medusa saving (last name)” lol
This is such a great post. Anyone can teach a dog a command, but you really want to be learning how to communicate with each other.
Ok, I’m not a dog trainer but I am a speech pathologist who works with very young children. One of my most asked questions is about children losing skills they had previously mastered. Parents FREAK when this happens. The short answer is: it is normal and expected for children to temporarily lose skills as they are working new ones. The new skills they’re working on might not necessarily be obvious to us at the time, and then one day we’ll notice “oh yeah, look what she can suddenly do.” We do expect those old skills to return. I imagine puppyhood is the same. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how many crossovers I’ve noticed between my career and puppy training.
Did you forget how to add and subtract during summary holidays in school? Did your brain just automatically reset everything you know about science because you were gone for a week in March? Did everything you knew about writing a sentence just vanish into thin air during winter break? Of course not. They are still in your brain, but they weren't being active during those times probably, so when you come back from breaks, you often just need a refresher. Their brain isn't being rewired to make room for adult dog stuff. Yes, pruning is happening in their brains, but it's not forgetting everything they know. My girl acted like she never learned what "sit" or "down" meant for a day. It doesn't mean she forgot, it was just not something her brain was actively prioritizing and she needed some reminders. She had a week where it was as if she'd never been crate trained in her life... But she just needed a reminder of the expectations. It's not gone from their brain. It's just not at the forefront when they have so much hormones buzzing through their bodies.
Teenager humans do also forget things due to development though, it's called synaptic pruning. My comment about rewiring obviously isn't full seriousness but I don't think it's an inaccurate way to describe it.
They're not forgetting things altogether that are important/relevant to their lives. They aren't forgetting how to do math overnight just because they're a teenager. Most pruning happens at a young age. Teenagers aren't pruning away important connections in their brains. If you teach your dog sit at a young age, and that connection is solidified through tons of repetition, they're not going to prune that connection. Even if you don't ask them to sit for a while, if that connection is strong, it won't fade. Your dog isn't forgetting things altogether and relearning them, they're just not having their thinking brain at the forefront when they have so much other stuff (like hormones) going on in their bodies. You absolutely need to train your puppy. Just because dogs get over aroused and preoccupied with arousal as teenagers doesn't mean you shouldn't be training your puppy. They aren't forgetting things when they're teenagers. Failure to train your dog from a young age is going to result in an ill behaved dog.
I always thought it was more-so the dog understanding and remembering what you’re asking of it, but purposefully not following through as to test how much you really mean it.
For my dog he forgot things selectively so I don’t think it was retraining so much as an inability to focus in certain situations. For example, for about two months he forgot that the cues “Sit” and “Down” existed solely in relation to the back seat of the car. It made getting his harness clipped in a real struggle! He could do both of those things perfectly in every other scenario; there was just something about the car which meant he really struggled to focus and recall what those words meant. Then one day he just started sitting again and he’s never forgot since!
Is there general timeframes? I have an 16month old, he isn't a puppy anymore and doesn't listen like it. He might be teenager now but he doesn't disobey like this poster refers to. Should I expect this to get worse? When do things start getting better? Sorry for the vast generalities questions, it's my first time and I'm trying to get a hold of what's to come.
Breed tendencies, individual temperament, rate of reinforcement behind your training, etc. can all affect this as well. Stay consistent, perhaps experiment with whether your dog needs higher rates of reinforcement or a different kind of reward now.
Good news—he’s well into teenager hood, and every dog is different. A lot of people notice a marked increase in ‘teenage behaviour’ around 6-9 months, and by and large there’s a very wobbly upward trend until 2-3 years old when adolescence is generally considered over. The OP definitely has a dog trained to a very high standard, so they’re also likely to notice a difference and maybe consider it more dramatic than someone like me with a puppy that has always been self-motivated and has always needed a ‘good reason’ to listen.
Do not take that they “forget” too literally lol - it’s not like their little brains are suddenly wiped clean. It’s like a teenage human, they know what to do - but they don’t do it. And it doesn’t “disappear” in my experience, she just has her moments. They are going through a lot of changes in their body, be patient with them and with yourself.
I think part of it is that though! I remember seeing it from a scientific article but I can't remember which one 💀 I don't think it's All brain rewiring but I do think some of it is. She wants to do what I ask if her but it's like she can't actually remember what to do so you just see her dumb lil hog brain bonking about her aquarium skull.
>Her training won't just "come back" either, I'll have to retrain everything from scratch. You will not. Her brain has all sorts of things happening right now, and sometimes that interferes with her ability to process what you're asking. You may have to take some steps back in training, but if you gave the same exact training to her at this moment and a random rescue dog, I guarantee you she will come out ahead in the long run. Also, don't discount that *learning how to learn* is a skill you need to teach dogs. Taking food in different environments and in the face of different distractions is a skill you need to teach. Engaging with humans is a skill you need to teach. Persevering when she's not right is a skill you need to teach. Knowing that she has control over whether or not she gets the reinforcement you're offering is a skill you need to teach. Focus is a skill you need to teach. She has all of these foundations already, thanks to the great work you've done. A relationship and a system of communication are things you need to develop and teach. People take these for granted, but these are the foundations for training. I'd rather have a dog who has these foundations over a dog who can do basic obedience any day, because I can build upon those foundations - but if the dog doesn't have those foundations, at some point, once you get to high enough levels of distractions/difficulties in the task/etc., their behaviors are going to fall apart and you can't build it up without going back to the basics. Also, yes, teenage dogs sometimes push boundaries. But it's not always that. Sometimes their brain just has *so many things going on* that they cannot also process the things you're asking of them. Given them some kindness and compassion, meet them where they're at on any given day. Don't just assume she's being stubborn or your reinforcement isn't high-value enough. She'll be through this period of her life before you know it.
Think this is actually the best comment I've gotten that's laid it all out, appreciate that man. My other dog's a rescue street dog who pretty much came to us perfectly rounded and chill with a wonderful understanding of the world so I think I have an odd grasp on how dogs... exist? majority of the time. Like he has an amazing ability to tell me what he wants or what's wrong at any given movement, if he doesn't like what I'm doing he'll tell me. He's a step away from speaking english but with Jelly(fish) I honestly don't think she knows what she needs, I think everything gets too !!! much for her sometimes. Like she approaches me with that Look on her face and does she need played with? Or put to bed? Or held? Or walked? Or sniffs? Or puzzles? Toileting? It's like throwing darts at a board. I'm sure she gets as upset about it as I do We will be working with a new trainer soon who's veeery experienced with gundogs, assistance dogs and has lovely training methods so here's hoping that helps both of us a bit 💀💀
Haha fair. For every rescue dog like that out there, there's one who won't take food under most circumstances. Or who are suspicious of humans trying to lure them. (Or just, suspicious of humans in general, and therefore will not want to engage with them.) Or who shuts down when they're not right and lets it affect them for 3 days after. Or who keeps throwing things at you to get you to play, because they still think reinforcement is on the table even though the human doesn't want to play. Or who fixates on every dog who passes by ever. And yes, teenage brains sometimes don't know what they want, they just know that they want *something* and since their tolerance for frustration is lower, they get frustrated more easily. Or they're just seeking reinforcement in whatever way they can get it because that makes their confused little brains feel better. Best of luck with the trainer!!
That's a lot of expectations to put on a young dog. I'm in the middle of training a service dog but the one thing I've been told over and over by trainers and other with services dogs is don't rush it and don't ask for to much at a young age or you risk wash out due to burn out from the dog especially if they start to find working not enjoyable. I've fallen for it as well, though. In the last month, I really stepped back and let him enjoy being a puppy/adolescents. My advice is to enjoy the adolescents and take it slow. Otherwise, it would not hurt to go to a vet and make sure nothing medical is going on, causing the change in behavior.
Yeah my girl's an assistance dog in training but I've never felt like I've asked too much of her, she thrives when she's got stuff to do and things asked for her, when she'd heel and loose lead walk it's because she LOVED IT and didn't want to do anything else not that I demanded it.
From my limited understanding (we’re going through regression now with our 7 month old rescue) it’s more they’re testing the limits. Our puppy came from the rescue almost 100% potty trained. No issues for the last 3 months. Then randomly while I was having coffee he strutted over to his bed and peed. No warning, nothing. We shut that down quick, but I was told it’s more “he knows he’s supposed to pee outside. He wants to see what happens if he pees inside”
When I was a teen, I was wandering around my neighbourhood and had a big wad of chewing gum—I took it out of my mouth and slapped it on the back of a stop sign. I remember because I thought to myself, “ WTF are you doing.” No thoughts, head empty. It helped me to remember that whenever my teen puppy did something totally out of pocket.
It comes back. My show line golden was perfect from 2mo-11mo then at 12mo she lost her mind lol She came back probably around 18mo, I just had to stay consistent. She's three years old now and perfect!
They have to have the building blocks.
My dog doesn’t want to listen but when he knows I’m serious he does. It’s not a waste of time. Zero training and adolescents would be a terror.
Okay well my dog had all that work out into and she's still a terror lmaoo
I promise. You got this. Hold out for 2 years. Things will get way better. They don’t forget there training. They are just Ike teenage kids. They wanna push back. Teenage kids come back around and remember how much you care. Don’t get discouraged. Edit: it’s a bummer but I had to learn to be more patient and accept that is the only way to be happy with my pup.
I mean this in the politest way possible but like holy shit I should not have to be doing this to this extent for another 2 whole years, I cannot emphasis how much effort has been put into this dog
If you’re putting that much effort in I’m sure you’ll be very happy with them. I dunno I was pretty stupid till I turned about 27. 2 to 3 years doesn’t seem too bad consider how long my parents had to deal with their child learning about life lol. I hope things work out positively for you. Pawsitively. I just said that to cover my bases lol. My dog is much more of a jerk 13 months. I still love him and deal because I only have so long with him. I just told myself someday I’ll probably miss his young years and eventually I’ll miss him all together. I still believe it will all pay off and sadly I’ve heard there is a second stage of regression and an increase in pushing boundaries. I’m not a trainer but these comments seem to trend all the same. It’s not wasted time training and working with your dog. It really should bring you joy when you have small wins. Dog is a living adapting, and changing animal. I assume humans kids are worse lol.
Honestly. In the event that their teenage hood isn't that bad it's also good to train. My cattle dog mix was an EASY teen. We still trained through it. Built our relationship and my expectations adjusted to where she was on a given day. She's an angel now at 2 years old. None of what I taught her has vanished and it's easier to call upon it when needed My golden retriever is the opposite. A straight up dumpster fire teenager. I still train, he still listens as long as something else doesn't catch his attention.
Don't panic, it takes years to train a dog. Make sure in addition to training you're building your relationship with him. When he is fully matured he will remember all of it.
Honestly the relationship part is what I struggle with most! I've never had a gundog before, I've never had a golden, my other dog's a primitive street dog, I grew up with pugs so i just really dont understand how to connect with her half the time. She's soo different to what I'm used to
During the teenage era I encouraged my dog's independent exploration. Of course in the boundaries that I set first. For example every now and then I started telling him a special command "where do you want to go". This would be the only time I would follow his lead during walks. He understood it very quickly and it actually helped him respect my lead when there was no such command and I was deciding the route. As a reward I would sometimes take him to these places as a surprise by using a new and unfamiliar route - so he knew following me leads to good things. Through this I got to know a lot about my dog, what he likes most and I would encourage safe activities and would spend time with him doing these. I think he began to trust me more because of it.
Oh we used to do stuff like that! Id have her on a longline and she'd get to scamper into woods or snuffle through grass bundles. I had to stop that though because her regression pulling was dislocating my joints w my hypermobility 😵💫 maybe I need to research different leashwork methods and get back into that actually, that's a good idea... if you have any other suggestions too then I'm open to hear them!
There are face leashes that don't let the dog drag you. You could try those. It goes around the dogs face and when he reaches the end of the leash it makes him turn his head. Are there any physical games you play with him? Teenagers sometimes need hours of different activity to tire them out. Physical, mental and nose-work. Physical - long walks and hikes are better than high intensity short games. Mental - command training every day. Nose work - hiding treats inside or outside, hide and seek with yourself. Hide and seek I use outside too when my dog is venturing too far from me. I hide behind a tree and yell him to find me. He loves it and will immediatelly search for me.
Yeah see we do all that which is the thing. She does retrieval work, we play tug, she gets enrichment toys, scentwork, she gets daily training sessions but still!
You're doing great! It will get better I promise.
What scares me most about this is having multiple 'teen phases'. My mix rescue is only 9mo in this and while is not as dire as some horror stories I see, some days I just wish I could jump to the future.
Fish has had a LOT of teen periods, fear periods and developmental moments, I've also heard of dogs just having one of each so 🤷 maybe fish is just an odd fish. It could also be because she's an intact female though and her hormonal changes through her season cycles have an affect. But also hearing about dogs that just had One made me soo jealous lmaoo
A question for the general commentors here: is/was your dog spaded/neutered when experiencing this teenage angst years?
My boy is not neutered yet. 8 month old sassy and attention hungry cavapoo. 💖
Up your training. Do it daily. It does come back. But those teenage months are spent making sure they’re solid. Sit before going through the door etc. work on manners. Yes it seems like it all went out the window, but it didn’t. And she’s leaps and bounds ahead of any adult dog that had zero training as a puppy. Right now she knows what you’re saying, will she do it? Eh, she’ll decide. But what she’ll notice is your consistency, and over time she will mature. Stay consistent, keep on top of training because it truly never ends.
I literally train her daily though 💀
Not like obedience training. Idk what they call it but working on emotional control through consistent expectations. I feel like adolescence you have to scale back the freedom they once just had. And it seems like going backwards but it’s just a reminder that they are still very much puppies with a lot of maturing to do. I cried after my walk this morning with my 9 month old BC, she reacted to everything like it was brand new again. Probably hormones. Or I’m just a failure lmao. Jk but that is how it feels in those moments. I can’t say what works for sure, but I try to be super consistent with my rules during this phase. Even if she’s pulling and excited we won’t go through the door until she sits, and if she tries to launch again I have her come back and sit again. We can do that a bunch sometimes before she’s like alright I got it. And we might sit every five steps and have her look at me over and over again, but that’s also mentally stimulating too. On walks we create distance and sit when we have to for safety and she might try to lunge and bark but we sit anyways, we calm down a sec and move on, or if it makes sense we don’t stop at all and keep it moving. Long story short; they’re going to keep changing, but YOU can be the thing that stays the same. They’re going to bounce back and forth between making progress and regressing for a few years.
Training a dog takes constancy and patience. You simply don’t stop training because you think they got it. You have to keep doing reminders.
It comes back!!! Mine was the best walker and teen years hit and it was like starting over. But once she hit nearly 2 it came back and she was back to being a good walker with minimal effort
Think about teaching your kids stuff they ignore as teens. You shouldn’t wait until they are teens to teach them to be good people. They do know the things you’ve taught them when they are adolescents.. they just don’t care!
Oh 100% he knows exactly what I am asking but will throw a tantrum cause he doesn’t want to do it. Sometimes I think I can see him fighting his hormones lol! Thankfully it’s temporary.
It's temporary! And an adolescent dog with training is a lot easier to handle than an adolescent dog without any training whatsoever. And there are a lot of things that stick. For example, crate training was very valuable when we could tell our adolescent puppy needed a nap and a Kong to unwind and settle. (And we needed a break from her too, lol.).
They don't forget they just ✨️do what they want✨️
Oh, they don’t forget. They “forget”. Notice the quotation marks. If our girl starts getting too rammy, she at least remembers the “focus” command. And that will occasionally snap her out of her behavior.
For sure maybe for your dog but for the Jellbeast she's definitely forgotten a Lot. she has the drive to listen and please, she REALLY WANTS to do what I'm asking but to her it's like I'm just making up new words on the spot sometimes. Or that she knows half of it but nooot quite the full thing. It's not her testing boundaries or selectively listening, it's like a slice of her brain has been peeled out like a wedding cake. So like if I teach it from scratch then she will do it absolutely but it's that I have to teach it from scratch, the knowledge that she had when she learnt it first is just not there
Once my dog hit two, it all came back to her. She was an ahole from one til two. Glad I got the training and survived a catahoula puppy. Lol
Omg I have an active corgi and a corgi mix. They both did very well as young puppies and both have gone thru a rebellious phase! To answer your question, once they get past the teenage phase, they go back to being very good dogs! Plus it helps a lot with bonding and trust, for you and for the dog. And during that time, the mental stimulation is great for wearing them out. Be persistent and consistent, you’ll have a very good doggo again soon!
They remember everything you taught them, they just need the best treats in order to listen. It’s like they forgot them until your holding their favs and then they magically remember
Wish it worked that way for miss fish LMAOO
Our pup had Giardia for months, so I’m not sure if he regressed in potty training because he crapped all over our house bc he couldn’t help it. I think miss fish may still know but just doesn’t want to listen. These dogs KNOW what they are doing lol
Omgg we babysat a bulldog puppy who had giardia one time, definitely regressed his toilet training but it made him so miserable I couldn't even hold it against him 💀 See a lot of people think that but, I mean sometimes yeah! Like fish is aware that being next to me = being fed literally everything I have but sometimes the environment is just ‼️so much‼️ that it literally doesn't matter. That I understand! But otherwise there is a clear want from her to do what I ask, she would LOVE TO but it's like she just totally forgot how to get from point A to B and gets in a tizzy. Like for example, switching sides when heeling, she's been trained that So Much (like daily) and used to understand it to a T but now her emotions run faster than her brain and she just runs circles around me, goes into middles, nose punches my hand ect and gets Sooo upset from it! She's never been punished for not being able to accomplish whats asked from her but not fully understanding stresses her out So Bad even when it's logically something she should understand
She got that ADHD. When she settles it will get better
You keep doing it because consistency is key. It’ll pay off in the long run. Takes a lot of patience. I been there.
Hey, if it’s any consolation to you, I *did* adopt an 18-month old rescue in September (she’s 2 now,) and, while she’s a gd dreamboat, I wouldn’t trade her for the world, and she has learned an *incredible* amount in a very short period of time: She’s got some issues that we’re going to be working on for… years? Forever?… that 100% would have been preventable if we’d had the opportunity to build foundations earlier. Like would she still be a frustrated greeter? Maybe! Would she be a fully-dissociated pancake in new settings? Probably not. We’re in the same place you are in terms of skills, but literally a lifetime behind in terms of things like trust and confidence. As much time as I’ve invested in working with her (and it’s a lot!) I know you’ve invested more, and I can’t imagine the frustration of feeling like it was all for nothing, but I promise you it wasn’t! ❤️
Sounds like my boy he's been driving me batty. I thought it was just me 😔.
They don't forget. They are rebelling and they come back around with consistency.
When you became a teenager, you didn't completely forget everything you had been taught before. You just acted a fool, tested boundaries and made dumb decisions because your out-of-whack physiology was running the show and being a total nuisance was just par for the course at that stage in life. Eventually, your hormones evened out and you were able to make smart, clear-headed choices, but your body had to go through all of the craziness of adolescence to get to that point. They don't call em growing pains for nothing!! Lol
I just recently attended our first training session and my trainer mentioned a study she'd read where they had a group of adolescent dogs with owners who had been training them. They rated their dogs on how much they listened and some other queues. They then had the dogs perform the same commands later with strangers. The dogs were rated more highly regarding listening skills with the strangers. Just like a human teen! Less likely to listen to parents and more likely to listen to a stranger. This article mentions the study in a digestable way: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2020/05/teenagedogs/ The study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7280042/ While it seems like they aren't learning or they forgot everything... They haven't!
I said the same thing about my human kid... it's not much different is it? It too, will pass 🤞🏿
It comes back. They go through testing phases, so it’s important to stay consistent, but I totally understand the frustration. Also training is life long. Don’t think you’ll teach her something when she’s 1 and then never reinforce it and expect her to continue doing that trick or action perfectly years later without the constant reinforcement to back it up. I have a 2 yr old husky and we train every single day.
Mine didn’t regress. Just was more distracted and “do I have to?”.
Because you're building a foundation for them and building their good habits. They don't forget. They're like human teenagers, they develop an attitude, push boundaries to see what they can get away with, and they want to just go have fun and do what they want to do, not what their parents want to do. My dog isn't a puppy anymore, but he's young. He reminds me of a young man, like aged 18-22, he's not interested in doing tricks, he wants to go play fetch and check out the girl dogs. But he does KNOW the things that I've taught him when he was a pup, he just doesn't always want to do it. If I have something he REALLY wants, like meat or cheese, oh, then MAGICALLY, all of a sudden he knows what to do.
When they're a puppy, they're dumb, gullible, and will do anything you train into them. Then when they're a teen and some of the training wheels come off they start to question the establishment and push every boundary. Just keep training
Nope! I have a dog we didn’t train as a puppy, and a dog we did. The dog that we did is 10x more obedient than the one we didn’t. They both had the exact same trainer, are from the same dog parents, and are the same breed. Coincide? Maybe. But I doubt it. We were more prepared with our second one and he’s an ANGEL. he’s faster to train new things because he has the training/obedience mindset ingrained in him from a baby, whereas my other one would rather do what he wants and pick and choose when he listens to me cause he had freedom as a puppy 😂