"distractions" in adolescent dogs

Adolescence is a surprise. Most owners do not expect what occurs at adolescence. Good owners, who have spent much time carefully and deliberately training their pup, find themselves with "teen" dogs who do some of the most aggravating, frightening, and just plain weird things.

Some owners view this phase as evidence of failure of puppy training techniques. They see "Hmm.... puppy training was gentle & reward-oriented. Now I am seeing behaviors I don't want, so that means that gentle & reward-oriented doesn't work."

Nothing could be further from the truth. The adolescent brain is capable of so much more than the puppy brain. Yes, hormones must have an effect (c'mon kids, let's get testing this stuff) . Even if they have had spay/neuter at age 6 months, they have had at least a taste of some hormones. But even early spay/neuter candidates seem to have some degree of behavioral change, which I argue relates to full development of brain capacities.

Adolescence is marked by "distraction". Owners having trouble with their "teen" use this word a lot. Now, "distraction" is a human word. "Reward" is the dog word. What _I_ see is that we have a dog who has had the same access to these rewards for the past 12 months, and kept choosing the human who is only NOW getting around to choosing the distraction over the reward presented by the human.

My belief is that this "distractability" is related to the same root cause as the difference between how long a training session can be for a puppy compared to how long it can be for an adolescent.

The problem is NOT that the adolescent is MORE distractable -- it's that she is LESS distractable. Once her brain starts wrapping itself around the mysteries of something so all-absorbing, like what a squirrel really represents... That package of smell and movement and sound, well, you just know that you really like that.

While her brain is flooded with squirrel-related contemplations... Well, it's going to take a lot more to distract her BACK to your boring handful of Milk Bones (or... snort... SITTING for your stupid treats?) than the cough or the jingle of keys or various other non-predictors-of-anything-as-interesting-as-a-squirrel that you used to use when she was a puppy.

For this reason, I LOVE play as a training tool for adolescent dogs. Because I have noticed that the distraction that seems to beat all distractions when you are an adolescent dog is the opportunity to play with another dog. Play is powerful!

Puppies are unable to focus on anything for terribly long. (I suspect biologically unable.) They are quickly distracted from focusing on the "distraction"(what the human doesn't want them to think about) by the cough, clapping hands, a giggle, the keys,-- very very mild stimuli. However, they are just as easily distracted from focus on the human. That shifting focus doesn't pose a problem in puppyhood, because the puppy brain doesn't really "lock on" to any particular thought in the way that the adolescent brain gradually starts to be able to do.

I suspect that this gradual increase in focus and increased resistance to milder stimuli is to blame for the practice of using more and more aversive distractors. Oddly, there is no matching practice of more and more salient (delicious) rewards.

What does this mean for training? When you have your adolescent's attention, you've got to overwhelm the brain in the way the squirrel does. One way to do this is to ratchet up your criteria. It's no longer good enough for the dog to just sit. Now, the dog has to sit faster than ever. Loose-leash walking isn't mentally demanding enough -- now it's time to start the focus-demanding heel. Whatever you asked for before, it's now time to ask more.

Another way is to provide more stimulating reinforcers. The milder the stimuli you use for puppy training, the easier it is to step up. Food rewards should be smellier and dogs should be hungrier than ever! Use play! Touch the dog as a distractor! Use some training equipment (properly).

How much you have to step up and for how long will vary significantly by individual dog. Once you do, it's still an up-and-down experience that makes trainers question: Should I add more punishment? Should I add more reward? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Deliberately working through adolescence properly--with patience, expecting ups&downs, and teaching whatever needs work-- has big payoffs as the dog reaches adulthood at 3-4 years of age. Behaviors solidify, in the way that humans get more set in our ways as we get older (again, suspect biological reason for this lack of "creativity"). So, good, desirable behaviors are no longer the "gamble" we saw during the adolescent phase. We begin to see the real lessons that the dog has learned. Dogs who have been properly trained and managed, whose needs have been met, blossom into dogs who are everything they can be.

On the other, hand, the solidification of behaviors also works against us. If, during the adolescent phase, when dog often test aggression, avoidance, or other behaviors for the first time, if the adult dog has learned that unwanted behaviors work for him -- we have an uphill battle thru adulthood. Once the adult dog knows he can make them work, well, it's hard to convince him that they don't. He knows they do. "No, no, Killer, that person isn't REALLY backing away from your growling..."

While puppyhood is about exploring puppy's relationship with the big wide world out there, adolescence is, in my opinion, the time when you can have the biggest impact on your relationship with your dog. Use it to your advantage!