Dogs aged 6 months to 2 years have brains that develop back to front, making emotions outpace logic. This causes impulsivity, fear, and independence. Max argues punishment training backfires and instead recommends expanding their environment and giving them outlets to dig, chew, and explore.
Chapters
If your dog is 6 months to 2 years old, they are an adolescent dog, and adolescence is where we start to see some clashing. So this is a video I wish everyone with an adolescent dog would please watch. My name is Max, and welcome to day 29 of the January series, sharing a self-improving tip each day until we become the humans dogs dream of having. And here is what you need to know about damn adolescence. The adolescent brain is slowly developing from back to front, meaning that the emotional parts of the brain through adolescence work faster than the logical parts, which is why during adolescence dogs can become frustrated faster, more impulsive because they act on emotions. They are more sensitive to stress chemistry, more likely to develop fears. But you also start seeing these dogs push for a bit more independence, and that is where a lot of problems come from. They need more freedom and independence, and you're told to do the literal fucking worst things ever. You start seeing more exploration, running, pulling, experimentation, like digging, chewing, investigating, communicating. And you're told to control those different behaviors with more recall training, lead training, manners training, timeouts, punishments, bribery, distractions, more obedience. So you actually end up becoming nothing to your dog but a barrier. You are being told to be the most frustrating thing in your dog's life. So overall, you do more training and your dog becomes less obedient because outside of your fun little training sessions, all that training is being used to just stop the dog from living. So adolescents need their world to expand, not get smaller. So if we change our training to be answers for the dog and change up their lifestyle to be less frustrating and filled with more outlets, that's a coexistence that focuses on longevity. Now, you've probably heard me mention the last few days I've got a surprise at the end of this month. A lot of that is also focused around adolescent dogs, so Some information will never be able to fit on here, but I think you'll like the project I've been working on. So until then, I'll see you tomorrow.
