Humans and dogs are very different but this thing is common in them – adolescence. When we first bring a puppy at our home, we teach him everything like bite inhibition, potty training and we also expect him to learn good manners and behave properly in our house. We do everything in order to make his life better, we even make him to learn socializing with other people or animals but, the question is – IS THIS IT? Obivously not, we often forget that puppy months are short and after this, we need to get ready foe the most challenging period of dog i.e adolescent period. But the happiest part of this period is adolescence goes by much quickly in dogs as compared to humans.
WHEN DO DOGS GO THROUGH ADOLESCENCE?
Well, the dogs can go through the adolescence at different ages which lasts for different time, this depends in the size, breed and individual dog. Smaller dogs like Maltese, Yorkie and Chihuahua go through the phase of adolescence around six or seven months of age, on the other hand, the dogs sized medium to large, takes a year or a year and half, to reach this phase. A giant breeds may take two years before reaching their adolescence. The adolescent years may lasts for few months or a year.
DURING ADOLESCENCE :-
Adolescent dogs are very much alike to teenage humans, at-least in attitude. Your dog will face the following things during adolescence :-
1. SEXUALLY MATURE :- Male dogs may take off in search of the ladies, whereas female dogs may advertise their availability to other male dogs. Both may become aggressive towards the dogs of the same sex.
2. LOTS OF ENERGY :- Teenage dogs have lots of energy so you need to monitor if they are getting good amounts of exercise or not.
3. SHORT ATTENTION SPAN :- They have quite a very short attention span and they can’t even concentrate on your commands like come, sit etc.
4. BECOMES SHY OR FRIGHTENED :- During adolescene, your dog might feel frightened or shy from the things that he took in stide a few days/weeks ago. So try not to force him to do anything. The only thing you can do is to give lots of love and with time and proper training sessions, he can become normal and your loving pet.
5. REACH HER ADULT HEIGHT :- Your cute and little pup has now reaches his actual height.
6. ROAMING OUTSIDE :- An adolescent dog may become more interested in a big, wide world. A dog who was once happy by sitting in your lap only and bounded upto you, is now more interested in roaming outside.
WHAT TO DO, WHAT TO DO?
Well, usually, the human families are not able to handle the teenage dogs, but it is a great experience in creating a lifelong and beautiful relationship with your dog. During his adolescent period, you just need to keep doing the same responsibilities which you have been doing to raise your younger puppy. However one of the most important thing you can do is to do the spaying or neutering of your pet. This will remove your half of tension. If you got your dog as a pup and provided him good training then you may have advantage when your pup reaches adolescent phase, but your job is not done here as the young dog still needs more training experiences. Also your adolescent dog has lots of energy and in order to burn those energy, he needs to exercise more, remember a tired dog is a well – behaved dog.
During this time, you just need to be patient, do not force anything towards him, this is the real time that the dog will “actually” bond with you as puppies love everybody but the dog will love you by his own choice.
During training, keep your voice more as a playful tone, rather than a mad tone because the dog won’t be a better – trained dog if you get mad at him during the process. During training sessions, give your dog tons of praisement, encouragement and treats.
Most people cannot be able to understand the phase of adolescence and this is the time when most of the people give up on them, do parents give up on their child when he reaches thw adolescence? Obviously not, so how can someone give up or leave their pet, I know this phase can be a little difficult to handle but this is your exam, if you really love your pet then, no matter what, you will never leave your lovable pet and companion. If you are looking for a dog then go to rescue centre and try to buy an adolescent dog. By spending enough time, you can teach him new tricks or training sessions. It is sad that most of the pet owners leave the adolescent dogs just because they cannot handle them. But you can save a life by adopting a teenage/old dog.