If you have owned or have an eight-month-old dog, you may have noticed that he has become disobedient and stubborn . His demeanor may even remind you of the typical moody and rebellious teenager. We have to tell you that you are not at all misguided since dogs also go through this problematic phase when they are about 8 months old . And, good news, this is a temporary thing.
These are the conclusions reached by a team of researchers after observing the behavior of 378 dogs. The animals were seen to be more obedient and sensitive below or above eight months of age. Of course, only when it came to paying attention to their owners, not to people outside the family. This means that, during adolescence, they have undesirable behaviors with their owners , as often happens to human adolescents, who become unpleasant with their parents.
Knowing that the dog is only going through a rebellious stage that will leave the same as it arrived, has important implications for the animal’s future, since there are those who choose to take it to a shelter , unable to deal with it.
“This is a very important moment in a dog’s life,” says animal behavior researcher Lucy Asher, from the University of Newcastle in the UK. ” It is the moment when dogs are usually welcomed again because they are no longer a cute puppy and, suddenly, their owners discover that they are more difficult and they can no longer control or train them.” “But as in the case of human adolescents, owners must be aware that their dog is going through a phase and will pass.”
In an experiment conducted with 93 Labradors, Golden Retrievers and mixes of these, it was found that eight-month-old dogs took longer and were more reluctant to respond to the command to “sit” given by their keeper than when they were five months old. However, the eight-month-olds did not show the same stubbornness when the order was given by a stranger.
The researchers found further evidence of this effect in data from a survey of 285 dogs (Labradors, Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, and their cross breeds). Dog owners and trainers less familiar with them were asked to assess the “trainability” of the animals by answering questions about obedience and how quickly commands were responded to. Again owners rated their pets as less obedient at eight months of age compared to five or twelve months . Trainers from outside the family stated, however, that obedience increased between five and eight months of age.
“It is very important that owners do not punish their dogs for disobedience or start to withdraw from them emotionally at this point,” says Asher. “This could make any behavioral problems worse, as it does in human adolescents.”
The study also found that less confident females, that is, those that show signs of a greater need for attachment and more anxiety when their owners separate from them, reached puberty earlier.
In short, if your dog is more or less eight months old and is a little upset, do not despair, it will pass and it will go back to being the adorable and obedient pet that it was.
Referencia: Lucy Asher, Gary C. W. England, Rebecca Sommerville and Naomi D. Harvey 2020Teenage dogs? Evidence for adolescent-phase conflict behaviour and an association between attachment to humans and pubertal timing in the domestic dogBiol. Lett.1620200097 http://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0097
