Monday, February 11, 2013

Typical adolescent rough patch

Chimera is full-throttle into adolescence nowadays. He went from eating his food regularly and loving treats, to eating every other meal and being too overstimulated to eat even hot dogs and chicken if there are other dogs nearby. He's started marking in other people's homes. His recall at the park is poor and because of that and the reactivity, he must be on a long line.

I would like my adorable, fluffy, attentive puppy back now, please.

I have to remind myself to keep socializing him to new places, because otherwise we fall into a routine of doing the same thing and going to the same places week in and week out. We're making slow strides in his reactivity to people and other dogs. I've started a little BAT work and I'm doing a structured session with a friend later this week.

We haven't been doing as much tricks training since he lost interest in most of his treats. We still do play training, and I've been working on trying to get better stimulus control over his verbal cues. We haven't been doing any tricks training outside of the apartment because of his reactivity and general distractability. I'm not sure what to expect from agility class tomorrow.

Leash manners progress has slowed from the quick boost we got after switching techniques, but I'm still seeing slow progress, and I'm enjoying the walks more than I used to.

2 comments:

  1. Argh, adolescence sucks. Adolescence plus reactivity sucks even more. Hang in there and keep working on it, and it'll pass! (I know you know this, but sometimes we all need a pep talk. Or at least I do.)

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    1. Do I ever, haha! He's a totally normal, healthy puppy, and I know that eventually he'll be over this, but it is a PITA in the meantime! :P I'm still kind of in awe that you chose to adopt a crazy adolescent poodle!

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