If your dog doesn’t want to sit down, it’s probably just a teenage protest. Or she fell in love.
Parents of teenagers are well aware of what a "transitional age" is: constant mood swings, ruffness, frequent scandals, and sometimes hysterics rush into your family like a whirlwind. And then scientists threw a new problem: it turns out that adolescent protest is not only in human children, but also in dogs. So our pets during puberty can also be rude and conflict with their owners.
When do dogs become "teenagers"?
Adolescence is the final stage in the development of reproductive function, scientists remind. During puberty, mammals experience dramatic hormonal changes and brain remodeling. The authors of the study, published in the journal Biology Letters, noted that the relationship of owners with their dogs is very similar to the relationship of parents with children, and set out to trace if they have problems of "adolescence".
The study involved 69 dogs - German Shepherds, Labradors, Golden Retrievers. More precisely, not they themselves, but their owners. Their answers to the questions of the most detailed test revealed a lot of interesting things. Namely, adolescence and related problems in dogs occur at about 8 months.
Almost like children
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Sometimes they confuse inexperienced owners: people remember their pet well as a gentle, playful five-month-old puppy, and do not recognize his character in a ruffy 8-month-old teenage dog. He stops listening and obeying commands, does not readily recognize close people - well, what do you want from a teenage dog?
“Many dog owners and professional dog handlers have long suspected that a dog's behavior can change during puberty. But so far there has been no empirical evidence on this. Our results show that behavioral changes observed in dogs are very similar to changes in parent-child relationships,”says Dr. Naomi Harvey, study co-author at the University of Nottingham School of Veterinary Medicine and Science.
It is at this age that the owners give their dogs a shelter
Sometimes the owners are afraid of such changes in the characters of their pets. It is at this age that dogs are most often handed over to dog shelters. "Because they are no longer cute little puppies, and suddenly their owners realize that their subjects are more difficult and they can no longer control or train them," says Dr. Lucy Asher of Newcastle University. “But as with teenage children, owners need to know that this is a normal maturation phase and it will pass.”
At the same time, experts recommend taking a closer look at this problem if you are thinking of taking a teenage dog from a shelter. Perhaps at this age it will be a little more difficult to improve relations with her. And of course, you should not severely punish your teenage dogs if they belatedly follow commands: what if their thoughts are occupied by some cute dog from a neighboring yard?
KONSTANTIN IVANOV
