The Adolescent Months
5 cards · about a minute
Six months to eighteen
Somewhere after six months the puppy who came when called stops doing it, and that is not spite or failed training. It is a brain being rebuilt.
Old fears come back
A second fear period lands in adolescence, and a dog who was fine with the bin lorry may suddenly not be; go back to distance and patience, not insistence.
Put the long line back
This is the year recall breaks, so use a long line in open ground rather than spending six months watching your dog practise ignoring you.
Do not go quiet now
Adolescence is when most dogs are given up and when most households quietly stop training; holding the routine steady straight through it is the entire job.
It does end
Most dogs settle somewhere between eighteen months and three years depending on size, and what you keep doing this year is what they come out of it holding.