Your puppy had a beautiful recall at five months. At nine months they look directly at you, consider it, and run the other way.
This is not spite, and it is not a failure of your training. It is adolescence, and it is one of the most predictable and least discussed phases in a dog’s life.
What is happening
Adolescence in dogs runs roughly from six to eighteen months, earlier in small breeds and later in giants. During it:
- The brain reorganises. As in human teenagers, the regions handling impulse control and risk assessment develop later than the regions handling motivation and reward
- Hormones surge, in both neutered and entire dogs, though entire dogs have a more dramatic version
- The world becomes more interesting and you become less so
- A second fear period often occurs, somewhere between six and fourteen months, where a confident dog suddenly becomes suspicious of things they previously ignored
A study from Newcastle University found that dogs in adolescence were measurably less responsive to their own owner’s cues — but not to a stranger’s. The relationship, temporarily, is the thing under strain. That is a remarkably close parallel to human teenagers.
The same study found that dogs with a less secure attachment to their owner reached puberty earlier, which is another parallel worth sitting with.
What it looks like
- Recall stops working, especially outdoors
- Lead pulling returns
- Barking and reactivity appear or worsen
- Chewing returns after teething had finished
- Toilet training regresses in some dogs
- Sudden fear of familiar objects, people or places
- Testing boundaries that were previously settled
- More interest in other dogs, and in scent
- Humping, marking, roaming in entire dogs
Importantly, this is the age at which most dogs are given up to rescue centres. The peak is between six and eighteen months, and the reasons given are almost always the behaviours above.
Knowing that it is a phase — and that it ends — matters.
What to do
Go back a step, without embarrassment. If the recall has gone, put the long line back on. If the loose lead has gone, go back to short sessions in boring places. This is not failure; it is meeting the dog where they are.
Manage the environment. Off-lead freedom in a field full of rabbits is not the place to discover that recall has stopped working. Use a long line for a few months. Nothing is lost.
Raise the value of your rewards. Kibble competed with a quiet garden. It does not compete with an adolescent brain and a dog on the horizon. Roast chicken, cheese, liver.
Keep training short and easy. Two minutes. Set them up to succeed. An adolescent dog who fails repeatedly disengages.
Do not add pressure. This is the age at which frustrated owners reach for harsher tools, and it is the worst possible moment. A dog in a second fear period who is corrected for being frightened can be permanently affected.
Protect sleep. Adolescent dogs still need fourteen to sixteen hours. An overtired teenager is a nightmare, exactly as a human one is. Enforce rest with a crate or a quiet room if they will not settle themselves.
Meet the mental needs. Sniffing walks, scent games, puzzle feeders, training games. Physical exercise alone makes an adolescent fitter, not calmer, and over-exercising a growing large breed carries its own risks.
Keep socialising carefully. Confidence built in puppyhood can be lost in adolescence. Continue positive exposure — but respect the fear period. If your dog is worried by something, add distance rather than pushing them towards it.
The neutering question
Adolescence is when most people are asked to decide, and the decision has become more nuanced than it was.
There is growing evidence that early neutering in some large breeds is associated with an increased risk of certain joint disorders and some cancers, and the picture varies considerably by breed, sex and size. There is also evidence that neutering before behavioural maturity may worsen fear-based behaviour in some dogs.
Against that sit the benefits: no pyometra, no unwanted litters, reduced roaming, and lower risk of certain reproductive cancers.
The honest answer is that this is a conversation with your vet about your specific dog, not a default. Neutering is not a treatment for adolescent behaviour, and expecting it to fix the recall will disappoint you.
Timeline
- 6 to 9 months: the first wave. Recall goes, distraction increases
- 9 to 12 months: often the hardest stretch. Testing, reactivity, fear responses
- 12 to 18 months: gradual improvement. Small breeds settle first
- 18 to 24 months: most dogs are recognisably adult
- 2 to 3 years: giant breeds and some working lines
What survives
Here is the encouraging part. The training you did in puppyhood is not lost. It is buried under an adolescent brain, and it comes back.
Owners who manage well through this period — who go back a step, keep it positive, and wait — consistently end up with the dog they were building. Owners who escalate frequently do not.
The phrase most experienced trainers use is “train through it, don’t fight through it”. The adolescent dog is not choosing to ignore you. They are, for a while, genuinely less able to listen.
