Teenage Tantrums – puppy to terrible teen. Travis is now six months old; the testicles have descended and his brain is entering its last stages of development into adulthood.
Puberty can be as challenging for dogs as it can be for humans – and that includes the owners!
Training success is rarely linear – there are good days and bad days and boy did we have a truly awful day yesterday. There are probably multiple reasons why it was such a bad day; maybe we both got out of bed on the wrong side. It certainly felt like that.
It didn’t seem to matter what I did, Travis just responded by jumping up and biting my arms. Everything seemed to make him crabby and that transferred pretty quickly onto me. Too much exercise, not enough exercise; too much stimulation, not enough stimulation – was he hangry? Nope; food didn’t help, neither did his favourite chew – a particularly stinky bison horn.
You know those toddler tantrums in shops? Well, we had the equivalent on the tube in the rush hour. Great timing Travis. He jumped on me and bit my arms leaving an impressive array of bruises, scratches and scraped skin whilst a disapproving woman opposite harrangued me as I desperately tried to settle him down. There’s always one of those around when you least need it. Shall I let him do this to you – see how you’d like it, I thought until I eventually said (through gritted teeth) This is really none of your business. Not the best way of handling it, but 30 seconds of a down stay and then he was off again, jumping and biting. Arghh!!!!!!!
The woman seemed to decide that she was so disgusted with my incompetence that she changed seats. That was the most helpful thing that she did. I’m perfectly capable of beating myself up over my errors without any help. Just saying.
Real life often intrudes into the textbook way of coping with such unwanted behaviour as early puppyhood morphs into the “terrible teens”. I was not in a position to feed him, he wasn’t thirsty, I couldn’t get off and let him eliminate. As it happened, we were home fairly quickly and he didn’t seem to need any of those things anyway. I was tired.
Chalk it up to experience: do better next time (note to self, prevention is better than cure!)
Next week: Thunderstruck
Meanwhile, why not check out R+Dog Training Puppy Start Right Courses and the new Puppy Social Walk in Chiswick House grounds for help with understanding your puppy, and the Teenage Tearaways Course for help with canine puberty.