Dogs are less obedient when they hit puberty, study shows

Dogs become less obedient to commands from their carer during adolescence just like teenage kids, according to British researchers.

In experiments, dogs were more likely to ignore commands given by their caregiver and were harder to train at the age of eight months, during puberty.

Despite being less mature, prepubescent dogs around the age of five months were more obedient to their owner than the older dogs. 

The research team, which claims to be the first to find evidence of adolescent behaviour in dogs, reassures owners of pubescent dogs that they are going through a passing phase.

Pubescent dogs are often put up for adoption due to their lack of obedience, but if owners can keep showing love and patience their pet will bounce back – much like difficult teenagers who go on to become well-rounded adults. 

‘Many dog owners and professionals have long known or suspected that dog behaviour can become more difficult when they go through puberty, but until now there has been no empirical record of this,’ said Dr Naomi Harvey, co-author of the research from the University of Nottingham’s School of Veterinary Medicine and Science.

‘Our results show that the behaviour changes seen in dogs closely parallel that of parent-child relationships, as dog-owner conflict is specific to the dog’s primary caregiver and just as with human teenagers, this is a passing phase.’

The research team say it’s important not to punish pubescent dogs for disobedience or ‘start to pull away from them emotionally at this time’.

‘This would be likely to make any problem behaviour worse, as it does in human teens,’ said lead author of the study Dr Lucy Asher from Newcastle University.

Dr Asher said adolescence can be a vulnerable time for dogs as many are taken to shelters at this age due to behavioural difficulties – especially those bought as presents for children.

‘This is when dogs are often rehomed because they are no longer a cute little puppy and suddenly, their owners find they are more challenging and they can no longer control them or train them,’ Dr Asher said.

The research team, which also included researchers from the University of Edinburgh, looked at a group of 69 dogs to investigate behaviour in adolescence.

They monitored obedience in the labradors, golden retrievers and cross breeds of the two, at the ages of five months (before adolescence) and eight months (during adolescence).

The odds of repeatedly not responding to a command to sit from a caregiver was higher at eight months compared to five months, they found. 

Disobedience was more pronounced in dogs with an ‘insecure attachment’ to their owner, defined by higher questionnaire scores for attention-seeking behaviour such as following their owners from room to room and seeking contact when their owners sat down. 

The researchers also found that dogs took longer to respond to the ‘sit’ command during adolescence, but only when the command was given by their caregiver, not a stranger.

This suggests that pubescent dogs are generally less obedient with their owner than a random person they’ve never seen before – again allowing a comparison with human teenagers.

‘It’s interesting that the “sit” response is better for the stranger and if I were to speculate I think this could be explained by a dog “testing” the bond with their owner,’ said Dr Asher.

‘Conflict in human teenagers is thought to be an attempt to test or re-establish their bond with their parental figures.’

Female dogs were found to hit puberty earlier and be more disobedient during puberty if they have less secure attachments to their caregiver.

This is similar to girls, who often hit puberty early if they have insecure parental relationships, previous research suggests. 

Further evidence by the team was found when they looked a larger group of 285 labradors, golden retrievers and German shepherds, as well as cross breeds.

Both owners and a trainer less familiar with each dog filled in a questionnaire looking at ‘trainability’.

It asked them to rate statements including ‘refuses to obey commands, which in the past it was proven it has learned’ and ‘responds immediately to the recall command when off lead’.

Caregivers gave lower scores of ‘trainability’ to dogs around adolescence, compared to when they were aged five months or 12 months.

However, again trainers reported an increase in a trainability between the ages of five and eight months. 

The results indicate a possibility for cross-species influence on reproductive development – meaning more of a comparison can be drawn between humans and dogs in a behavioural and biological sense, despite completely different evolutionary paths. 

The study has been published in Biology Letters.