As a puppy owner,
you've probably noticed that there are lots of little training challenges that
come up along the way.
And one very common training challenge is the teenage phase.
Now the good news is that this happens to nearly every puppy.
So you're not in a unique position,
but the bad news is if you don't know how to train through this situation,
you can really set your training back in today's video.
We're going to hear from Kayl and instructor Meg,
about Meg's one-year-old puppy named Highlight.
They're going to talk about the fact that there are actually two points in your
puppy's life where training naturally gets a little bit more challenging.
By the end of this video,
you're going to be able to identify what some of these challenges are,
how to plan for them. And most importantly, how to train through them.
I'm Ken Steepe and welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Here at McCann dogs.
We've helped more than a hundred thousand dog owners overcome the same dog
training challenges that you have. So if this is your first time on the channel,
make sure you hit that subscribe button so that I can help you to have a well
behaved four legged family member.
The teenage phase is a real thing.
And there's a couple of times in your dog's life that they're probably going to
go through it sometimes around four months next around seven months.
And today we're going to be talking with Meg.
She's one of our head instructors and our online trainers here.
And she actually has a young Border Collie about 11 months old.
And we're going to talk about a few examples that you went through with her
around that those two particular phases, what she did,
how you dealt with it and what our viewers at home can do to stop it with their
dogs. Now, you guys might remember highlight as a puppy because we actually,
I borrowed her several times to use in our video is,
and she was such a great little puppy. She was eager to work.
I had her around maybe 10 or 11 weeks old and she was just happy to do
whatever I wanted very much for Meg as well.
And then when she probably turned about four or five months,
you started to do a little bit more with her.
And what kinds of things did you notice different about her at that age versus
like when she was a baby baby puppy? Yep.
So the biggest things would be when she was really young,
it was generally just she and I, and the amount of stimulation,
the amount of motion at even just keeping the environment calm.
Everything was easier.
I generally trained at my home or in low distraction environments.
And then all of a sudden I noticed, and it was a great thing.
Just one of the things I love about her.
She started to notice things more and liked it. So she noticed other people,
she noticed other dogs she got very confident in new
situations,
but that actually made it more difficult for training because she wanted to seek
out all of those things.
Instead of just thinking that I was the most exciting thing in her world. Yeah.
I think it's really common for that to happen with everybody's puppy and a
common thing that people will do is they, they get kind of swept away with the,
with the puppies eagerness, and then we do things like,
let puppies pull us towards other dogs, or we let our puppies do this.
And we let her puppies do that because we think, Oh, look at how bold they are.
This is great.
And then what happens is we kind of start to develop or allow the puppy to start
rehearsing behaviors that we don't actually want when they're older.
We don't want, you know,
a four month old puppy is very different than a three-year-old dog.
That's still exhibiting those same behaviors.
So what kinds of things did you notice her doing and what did you do to work
through them?
Yeah, so for her absolutely motion was the biggest distraction.
She thought anything that moved was what she needed to be involved with.
So when I first brought her to class when she was around five months or so,
I noticed that she really lacked focus as any of the other dogs in class were
moving. And what I tried to do is make sure even with those new distractions,
that I was still able to reign her in to bring her back to me.
So I made a lot of choices that some of our students wouldn't even think to
make. When I was in class,
I chose to sit at the very end that I wasn't surrounded by other dogs.
I probably brought five or six different types of treats.
And I also knew that food wasn't really her favorite thing.
So I always brought a toy to class as well.
So I always tried to set myself up for success. So I had her number one,
reinforcer. Yeah.
And those types of tactics can also be applied for when you take your puppy to a
new scenario, maybe you're taking them to the park for the first time,
or you're taking them to a friend's house or whatever you're doing.
When you go to that new location,
consider how many difficult challenges that you might be applying to your puppy
at once. Are they round new people environment?
How much freedom are you giving them? Are they on leisure? Are they off-leash?
So it's really important to set them up for success.
She knew she was in a busy environment, something that was new.
So she was armed with a lot of reinforcements that she knew was going to help
the dog to make good choices.
So think about how to set your puppy up for success and then make sure that
you're ready to change things. Should you need to,
so of going to the park at the busiest times a day,
when like there's kids running around and there's dogs running around yeah.
Might not be the best time to be going to do your training sessions,
maybe pick a quieter time, maybe go a little bit further away,
bring your high value food so that you can start to build on success rather than
allowing the puppy to learn from the beginning to make poor choices.
So basically you need to anticipate the problems and that be ready to attack
them. Now,
it's really important for you to know is that everybody goes through these
adolescent phases with her puppy four months, seven months, you know,
makes a professional dog trainer.
She's made some fantastic choices with her dog,
but she still went through little periods of time where she had to evaluate the
situation and make some different choices for your puppy.
And you're going to need to do exactly the same.
Now we talked a little bit about four months,
but we're also going to talk about kind of the more challenging one.
And that's when puppies hit around seven months or that threshold where the
puppy started to be less baby puppy and more into, you know, getting towards,
to be an adult dog. And the tougher part about this is that you may have had,
you know, a string of months where things have gone really successfully.
And now at the puppies are going to do is deliberately test you,
even though they might know how to make better choices,
they might start to test the limits a little bit more.
So we're going to talk a little bit about what that period looks like and what
you can do to get through it successfully. She is coming up to a year old.
So she has been in and out and may go in again,
a bit of a teenage phase. So what,
some of the things that you noticed the most about her when she got into that
sort of that adolescent testy phase yeah.
For her, is that she's exceptionally friendly if you notice that.
And that's actually with people and dogs,
and that's one of the things I love the most about her,
but I know that that's going to become one of my train challenges as well.
She has probably started hiking with my boys probably around the time
she was seven or eight months. Because up until that point,
everything was pretty much done with her on her own.
And it started out fabulously. She was great, everything was wonderful.
She was listening. I did have a long line on her for the first little bit.
And then it seemed as though every time I called her response to name,
come command, she was turning on a dime every single time.
And I got a little overconfident and I took the line off completely.
And all of a sudden she hit this phase. And next thing you know,
I would call her and in the middle of the trail, I'll never forget this.
She literally looked at me, looked back,
saw the boys running and gave me a peace out.
Mom ran down the trail and she blew me off.
And it was probably the first time ever this prep has had the opportunity to be
wrong. She'd been right.
So many times I actually thought that she didn't know that ignoring her name was
an option, but apparently she did.
And she did that one other time with a squirrel in the backyard.
And at that point I could have let that go on and on and on for weeks and weeks
and weeks. And then it probably would have become a big problem. Instead,
the line went back on and I actually trained her for a little bit with just
my old dog. That's a little bit less exciting. He doesn't move as fast.
He doesn't act as silly.
And when I saw that she was able to respond beautifully around Swift at
13, then I started including a different dog. And then finally,
now she's reintegrated back in the pack. The three of them can hike together.
No problem. And her responses are right back to, to dynamite here, Lou. Yeah.
One of the things that makes said that seems very normal to us as dog trainers,
but is actually quite unique is she didn't actually have her dog hiking
and running and playing and walking with her older dogs until the dog was like
eight months old.
So that's that's seven months or five months really of
just continuous stuff between the puppy and Meg,
which is why initially when she started to integrate the dogs together,
the puppy was making great choices because that's kind of all she ever knew.
And then sometimes what happens is it smooth sailing for a little bit?
And then the puppy starts to go, wait a second. There's other dogs here,
wait a second. There's squirrels. And then they start to make poor choices.
And this is what, like what makes sense. This is where a lot of people go wrong.
They let those poor choices happen over and over again.
And now all that like great stuff that happened for a while while now it's gone
because we've allowed the dog to seek reinforcement in other areas.
So there's a good lesson here and that is once you see a glimmer of a
problem, we need to dial it back, get the long line back on,
get back to some of our trainings so that things don't end up getting worse.
So we talked about the recall and some outdoor control and how you sort of work
through that. But what about things like in terms of like being in the house,
you have a young kid, probably lots going on in the house with adolescent dog.
What are some of the things that you struggled with? And of course,
how did you work through those things to make sure that she was making good
choices? Yeah.
It's the biggest thing that I noticed was that she was first in a crate a lot
more when she was younger.
And then I generally start giving my dogs more and more time loose in the house.
However, I still have expectations that they don't get to run wild.
That's just not something you get to do.
And one of the things I found was that when my son was running around playing,
she could handle it if it was situations that were a little less exciting.
So for example, she worked a lot at lying on a dog bed, for example,
while he and I were working on some puzzles maybe he was doing some art at the
table. Maybe we were just sitting there reading a book,
things that were a little bit less exciting.
If he was bombing around my house with a Cape on and yelling at the top of his
lungs, being a typical three-year-old boy,
which does happen at my house then I found in those situations,
she did struggle to make the right choice to either remain on a bed or remain
calm and not choose to chase after him and join in all the fun.
So it makes example of the kids and dogs as certainly something I'm sure a lot
of you can relate to, but maybe your teenage phases, you know,
resulting in other behaviors that are not going so well at home. Like, you know,
maybe having accidents in the house again or chewing your things, your shoes,
you name it.
Actually you have a story about your brother's dog that just recently came up.
Yeah, absolutely.
He was complaining to me that the day he's been off due to COVID and working
from home for the longest time for months.
And he started to give his Husky more and more freedom around the house,
mainly because he was there a lot of the time and he was able to watch him all
of a sudden now he's going back to work and that dog who had a lot more freedom
and he thought he was able to handle that freedom has since proved that he
can't. And he came home one day from work and the dog had actually chewed the
baseboards while he was at work.
I think he was chewing some of the shoes in the front hall closet of that we're
actually in the front hallway, maybe not put in the closet, but anyway,
they did discover then that this Husky had to get put back in the crate again.
And he hasn't been in a crate in months,
but unfortunately for his safety and for the safety of their home,
they've had to re-establish some new rules and some new routines. Again.
I think it's also important to remember that you know,
sometimes people think like, Oh gosh,
I had to put my dog back in the crate and I'm like backtracking in my training,
but that's not really what you have to think about.
I think that there's going to be lots of phases in,
in your dog's life where you're going to give them a little bit of freedom
things you're going to go well,
and then they're going to make a mistake and then you're going to need to take
that freedom away and then offer it again in a little bit.
And you might end up doing some back and forth and back forth until, you know,
you can't really remember the last time they picked up shoes when they're not
supposed to,
or you can't remember the last time they had an accident and the house that
tells you that they're ready for some of that freedom. But I think far too,
people are too eager to give their young dogs freedom and opportunity.
And then you end up getting more mistakes rather than having them earn the
freedom in the first place or are they.
Give too much too fast.
So we hear often about students that for the first time ever,
they left their dog and they left them for an eight hour period of time.
Instead of typically what we would do is, okay, I'm going to try leaving my dog.
They haven't ever chewed anything.
They haven't had an accident in the house in a long time.
Why don't I leave them loose while I go have a shower?
Why don't I leave them loose while I go down the street to go get the mail,
we do shorter increments of time.
And we build up to that instead of throwing them a huge chunk of time where they
can get really creative with what they do while being like, well,
I hope they're okay. Yeah. I hope.
I have a coach when I get home. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely.
Being able to make better choices like that is important.
And then being able to take away the freedom, which is not a fun thing to do,
but just like kids, you,
you sometimes have to dial things back and offer it once again,
once you feel that they're making better choices.
So another common one that we hear often from our online students is about a
dog. That's been given a little bit more freedom in the house.
Things like going up on couches, going up on beds sometimes without permission,
or sometimes then once they're up there,
it's the owners have a difficult time giving them off again.
And aren't really sure how to deal with that because it's the first time the dog
thinks that they get to call the shots on on some of these sort of gifts around
the house.
And I think sometimes adolescents, they are more naturally curious,
maybe they're taller and they can see what's up there now a little bit more.
But I think it's also common for them to be like, Oh, well,
I wasn't really allowed to do this when I was four months.
But how about when I'm seven months? Like, do the rules still apply?
So working through those things is really important for issues like that.
Specifically jumping on the bed, jumping on the couch, maybe counter surfing,
jumping up to see what's on the counter.
One of the things that we really recommend that people do is go back to having a
leash or a line on the dog in the house because those particular behaviors among
others are very self rewarding behaviors,
which means if you're not there to catch them in the act of doing it they will
repeat it over and over and over again,
especially if they get to get up and have like a nice snuggly nap on the couch
or they could to get up and steal a loaf of bread and down it while you're not
paying attention. So having a leash on is going to be really,
really important with that obviously is going to come supervision
in a busy household. I know when we have lots of stuff going on,
there's like certain things that we use in the house to like make supervision
easier.
What are some of the things that you do in your house to like make your life
easier? So you don't have to watch the dog all of the time.
Sure. my son's room is a hot topic right now.
It's it generally a bit of like a bomb went off in his playroom.
So often the playroom and his bedroom.
I closed those doors sometimes, cause I don't want to see what's there,
but also because there is a lot more temptations there than any other room.
And I find that if I'm downstairs,
I want to know that there's no chance she's getting up on his bed to see what a
stuffed animals tastes like. I don't think she would do any of those things,
but I don't want to give her the opportunity to find out.
So I restrict access to a whole floor of my house.
I basically close all the bedroom doors, so sure.
She might run up the stairs and see what's up there.
She's going to find an empty hallway and she'll generally zip right back down
when she was a baby puppy, I just put a baby gate at the bottom of the stairs.
I didn't even let her go up and down the stairs at all.
Yeah, we do somewhere. We use a lot of baby Gates.
We have a crate in a really central area in our house so that if the puppy is
being crater,
the young dog is being created and there's stuff going on in the home.
They don't feel like they're being banished to the bedroom or banished to the
basement. They're still, you know, with the family and seeing things going on.
But they're in a controlled environment.
Baby gets your super-helpful lines are super helpful and leash.
So if they happen to grab something,
the worst thing you can do is like chase after the dog.
And the dog starts to learn like a big catch me, if you can type of game,
which means you better believe they're going to do it again.
So being able to stop those things quickly and efficiently without getting
angry,
without raising your voice without chasing the dog are all going to be waste,
to show leadership in a little bit more of a common assertive way.
And then of course you can redirect the dog to better choices,
but the goal is to adapt your house and adapt your structure so that
they're not getting into trouble. And then you're saying, no, don't do that.
And then they try this and you're saying, no,
don't do that your day should not be made up with a bunch of no, no, no's,
it should be more like, wow, what a great choice.
Look you offered to go lay on your bed or your sitting calmly.
You said something great earlier about training the dog around like the couches
and the beds and like, rather than waiting for them to make a mistake,
like what would you do differently?
Yeah, absolutely.
And actually I was just helping one of our online students with this the other
day the puppy was jumping on the couch every time they got an
opportunity to go through the living room.
And what we were actually working through was having the line on. And at first,
literally just walking past the couch and every time the puppy looked at the
couch and chose not to jump up with her on their own,
we praise them and rewarded them.
And then next we redirected them to a more appropriate place.
So we then redirected the puppy with that line, just dragging on the ground,
over to the dog bed at which point a Kong was given or the next time a bone was
given. And I actually said, keep a little,
a little Tupperware or something close by to that bed.
So every time your puppy chooses to make that choice there,
then they're reinforced for it.
Yeah. Basically you're taking the reinforcement,
which originally was naturally from the dog's perspective,
jumping up on the couch.
And we're basically saying that's actually not rewarding.
Going along on the bed is rewarding. That's where all the reinforcement,
our dogs in general always do things that they find rewarding.
And so if you're not there to like stop some of those,
not fun things for us things like jumping on the couch.
If you're not there to stop things,
your dog will just naturally find them rewarding.
So the training that we do needs to shift the narrative,
it needs to teach your dogs,
that making other choices that they might not think of themselves well,
by reinforcing them a lot for them,
the dogs will tend to gravitate to making those better choices,
which means going back to what I said before,
you're spending more time saying wild puppy,
what a great choice and less time for ripping your hair out and being frustrated
with your teenage bratty dog.
Good leadership can help speed you through this adolescent phase.
If you want to learn more about how to be a great leader for your puppy,
check out that card right there.
If you have an adolescent dog at home and you want a little bit more guidance on
what to do,
you can actually work with Meg and I online in our life skills program.
The link is in the description below. And on that note, I'm Kayl, I'm Meg.
This is Highlight Happy Training.