Short Term Memory Loss: Training an Adolescent Dog

To all the dog owners out there right now who have a dog between the ages of 24 weeks and a year, hang in there! You are living with a four-legged teenager! Different dogs go through the teenage stage at different times, but it will most likely happen sometime between 24 weeks and 9 months. However, some dogs “…can start as early as 18 weeks…” (Adolescent Dog Survival Guide by Sara Whitehead, pg.1). I have also known some dogs to maintain adolescent type behavior well into their second year of life! So, how does an adolescent dog act and what should you do? Read on to find out!

The Adolescent Mindset

Due to the onslaught of hormones, just like a teenage human, your adolescent dog will seemingly decide that it doesn’t remember any house rules, it can do things on its own without your help, and thus, it might begin to ignore your cues. It also might become much more confident and possibly standoffish. Your adolescent dog might act out in general more often than it did when it was younger by engaging in more rough play and even sexually driven behaviors. However, this is all normal! Don’t panic, your dog has not lost its mind. However, it has probably lost its attention span, and thus, might even seem as if it has suddenly started to suffer from short term memory loss!

K.I.S.S.

The age-old acronym, K.I.S.S. stands for Keep it Short and Sweet. This should be your training motto for working with your adolescent dog. If your dog cannot concentrate for fifteen minutes, then do not ask him to do so. If you work with your dog multiple times a day and many days in a row, you will be surprised how much your dog can learn when you shorten your training sessions! I once worked with a dog who acted like a teenager even though he was almost three years old. While working with him, I learned that the more I shortened the lessons, the more he learned! The reason is because the dog makes less mistakes. When you train for longer periods of time in one sitting, your dog has more opportunities to make mistakes, and your dog will remember those mistakes! But if you shorten the training sessions, you decrease the number of opportunities that your dog has to make mistakes. I have yet to meet a dog that does not start off doing well, but by the end of a long training session, he is burned out and can’t think clearly so he starts making mistakes, and a lot of them. By shortening the training sessions, your dog will only train for as long as he has the mental energy to do so! Train for five minutes at a time, maximum! You can do this multiple times a day but keep each session at, or under, the five-minute mark. Set a timer if you need to. I know it will be hard to stop, especially if your dog is doing well. But training is not there to exhaust your dog. Training is there to teach your dog behaviors in a way that he will remember them and use them.

Exercise is your Best Friend!

There is no need to exhaust your dog, but daily exercise is a must for an adolescent dog. Think of how much energy a human teenager has (and I am not talking about how much they have at school when they are falling asleep on their desk). Teenagers have a lot of energy; they just apply it to things like driving fast and playing sports. Now add another pair of legs to that and replace driving fast with a desire to chase anything that moves! Exercise is your best friend! Make sure your adolescent (teenage) dog gets daily exercise, both mentally and physically. They will love you even more than they already do!

Reference

Adolescent Dog Survival Guide by Sara Whitehead