Understanding Your Adolescent Dog: What’s Happening and How to Help

One day you have the perfect puppy. They walk nicely on the lead, come back when you call them and love spending time with you. Then you wake up the next day and all of sudden they're not listening to you, they pull you along the street on the lead and leave you in their wake as they sprint to the other side of the beach to play with an unknown dog. Welcome to doggy adolescence!

Adolescence can be a challenging time for both owner and dog. Their bodies are going through some serious changes, hormones all over the place, their brains fighting their own inner battles as nature demands that they start to work out how to stand on their own four paws. So let's unpick a little bit about what is going on.

Hormones are Rampant

Dogs are shown to go through a genuine adolescent stage similar to humans (Asher et al., 2020). Hormonal changes are taking place; male dogs will experience a surge in testosterone, female dogs will come into their first season. You might see an increase in marking and mounting behaviours, reactivity to dogs, people or other stimuli and vocalisation around this time - even when none of these were previously present (Stroeller, 2025).

The Brain is Rewiring

The limbic system is an area of the brain that deals with emotions and novelty-seeking. The prefrontal cortex is the area that deals with impulse control, problem solving and focus. Both the limbic system and prefrontal cortex are going through a development phase - but rather inconveniently they are doing so at different speeds (Ringrose, 2026). The limbic system is in the fast lane; the prefrontal cortex, is stuck in the roadworks.

This creates an imbalance where your previously well-trained puppy appears to forget or ignore cues, lacks impulse control and finds it hard to regulate their emotions. They haven't forgotten the behaviours they have previously learned, it's simply that their emotions are bigger than their ability to control them (Stroeller, 2025).

Alongside these structural changes, adolescent dogs also experience shifts in dopamine — the neurotransmitter that drives motivation and makes certain behaviours feel rewarding. During this stage, dogs can become more sensitive to dopamine, meaning activities that involve exploration, chasing, investigating or pushing boundaries feel especially good. This heightened dopamine responsiveness can amplify the limbic system's novelty-seeking tendencies, making them more inclined to take risks and seek out novel experiences (Ringrose, 2025).

Phew - It's Only Temporary!

The good news is that it doesn't last forever! Adolescence usually starts around 6 months (possibly earlier in smaller breeds and later in larger breeds) and continues up to about 18-24 months (Serpell, 2017). While this developmental phase is temporary, the experiences and habits formed during this time can shape how the dog behaves as an adult  (Asher et al., 2020; Serpell, 2017; Stroeller, 2025). 

What Can You Do?

Even though it is temporary, just letting them get on with it and hoping they "grow out of it" is probably not the best approach . So what should you do?

Build strong foundations early

Create good foundations during puppyhood. Train for the behaviours you want in adulthood, socialise well and with care, and most importantly create a relationship of trust between you and your puppy. Research shows that adolescent behaviours are often more challenging in dogs who have less secure attachments with their owners (Asher et al., 2020).

Keep up the training

Adolescence is not the time to stop training. In fact it is the opposite! You will be working with ever-changing attention and motivational drives so keep training sessions short and reinforcement hight-value and frequent. You may need to take a behaviour that your puppy has been performing for months without fail right back to basics.

As you did with your puppy training, increase the complexity gradually and don't expect too much. Incorporate novelty into your training by taking it to new places or using different reinforcement with a view to satiating their novelty-seeking drive. Keep training fun - for both of you.

Use management wisely

Management is your friend - don't let your adolescent dog practise the unwanted behaviours. If their recall is sketchy, they may need to go back on a lead to keep them safe.

Prioritise sleep

Ensure your adolescent is getting enough sleep. As they mature, they may naturally shift from the frequent naps they took as a puppy to more adult‑like sleeping patterns — sleeping through the night and being awake for longer stretches during the day. However, they may still need a guiding hand to help them take the rest and recovery time required to support healthy development into adulthood. Research into adolescent sleep suggests that many teenage dogs struggle to regulate their own rest and can become overtired without appropriate support (Roach, 2026).

Provide a calm sleeping environment for your dog, away from excessive footfall if possible, and create a consistent routine for exercise, enrichment, training and sleep.

Stay calm, be patient and kind

After all the hard work you put in during puppyhood, adolescence can be extremely frustrating as your dog appears to forget everything you spent time and energy  putting in place. Reverting to shouting at your dog, or worse, can damage your relationship, their confidence, and can increase levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, which can lead to further anxiety and reactivity.

Above all, remember that your dog is not being naughty, disobedient or stubborn. They are going through a natural developmental phase designed to encourage independence. Deal with it with compassion and consistency and you will come out the other side with a beautifully rounded adult dog. 

References

Asher, L., England, G.C.W., Sommerville, R. and Harvey, N.D. (2020). Teenage dogs? Evidence for adolescent-phase conflict behaviour and an association between attachment to humans and pubertal timing in the domestic dog. Biology Letters, 16(5). doi:10.1098/rsbl.2020.0097.

Ringrose, O. (2025). Installing adolescent dog v2.0: Please do not disconnect. [online] Dog Smart Training. Available at: https://www.dogsmarttrainingbehaviour.co.uk/post/installing-adolescent-dog-v2-0-please-do-not-disconnect [Accessed 20 Oct. 2026].

Ringrose, O. (2026). Why your adolescent dog is not broken — And what is actually happening inside their head. [online] Dog Smart Training. Available at: https://www.dogsmarttrainingbehaviour.co.uk/post/why-your-adolescent-

dog-is-not-broken-and-what-is-actually-happening-inside-their-head [Accessed 19 Oct. 2026].

Roach, D. (2026). Adolescent sleep and rest. [online] Just Behaving Golden Retrievers. Available at: https://www.justbehaving.com/wiki/living-with-your-dog/adolescent-sleep-and-rest [Accessed 20 Oct. 2026].

Serpell, J. (2017). The domestic dog: Its evolution, behavior and interactions with people. Cambridge University Press.

Stroeller, S. (2025). Hormonal shifts in teenage dogs – navigating the storm. [online] Zoeta Dogsoul. Available at: https://zoeta-dogsoul.com/who-is-my-dog/hormonal-shifts-teenage-dogs/ [Accessed 19 Oct. 2026].