When I was first introduced to what was then referred to as “positive dog training,” my son was about 5 years old. What I learned about this style of working with dogs—and especially puppies—jibed completely with how I wanted to raise my son. Principles like “catch them doing something right” (offer praise and reinforcement frequently for behaviors that are freely offered and are the things you’d like to see them doing), managing the environment to set them up for success, and communicating clearly about what behaviors you want (instead of forbidding/simply saying “No” to behaviors you don’t like) made perfect sense to me. I often say that positive dog training is responsible for my son turning out so well. At age 32, he’s successful, kind, responsible, a great dog owner, and soon to become a parent himself!
Recently, though, I have become more and more obsessed with how what is now called “force-free” dog training can help adolescent dogs in particular. I see so many parallels between the most effective ways to raise a teenager and how to get a dog through adolescence without ever feeling like you want to put them up for adoption.
I am not being flippant; adolescent dogs are at the greatest risk of being abandoned or surrendered to shelters and euthanized there. Walk through any animal shelter or flip through photos on rescue websites and you will quickly see that there are more homeless adolescent dogs than dogs of any other ages. Adolescents—generally, dogs between about 6 and 24 months—are surrendered to shelters more frequently than dogs of any other age, and they are often the most difficult to find homes for, especially after their behavior gets worse and worse as they grow increasingly frustrated and stressed in a shelter. Humans clearly have a difficult time dealing with dogs in this age bracket!
And it’s understandable! Adolescents are undergoing physical and chemical changes that give them a biological imperative to explore their worlds, become more independent, and to seek out food, social opportunities, and entertainment—but, restricted by the human environment and our schedules, these natural, normal impulses are often obstructed. Struggling with frustration and boredom causes many young dogs to behave in ways we don’t like, as our formerly perfect puppies develop new hobbies of chewing or otherwise destroying things in our homes, demand-barking, agitating other animals in the gamily, fence-running or fence-fighting, and more.
Just as some parents threaten (or follow through on threats) to send their misbehaving teenagers to military or boarding school, some dog owners become tempted to send their rambunctious, “uncontrollable” canine adolescents to a training “boot camp” or “board and train” facility. The conceit is that you send your obnoxious, naughty dog away and receive a polite, better-behaved dog back—but believe me when I say that this approach is fraught with peril. I can’t count how many news articles I’ve read about dogs who were injured, starved, neglected, and even killed by so-called trainers who “guaranteed” good results from their training program. But perhaps even more frequently, I’ve heard from trainers who told sad stories about dogs who came back from harsh training boot camps with a newfound fear and mistrust of humans, or a brand-new tendency to respond to their owners’ approach with defensive aggression.
To put it bluntly, trying to force a dog into compliance in any abbreviated time span, absent a loving, attentive, understanding owner, is a recipe for disaster.
Here’s what works well with adolescents of all species, to help them pass through and past the challenges of “teenagehood” and into a well-behaved, enjoyable adulthood:
