Any luck with the pulling Matt ?
Adolescence has definitely come with mine, he's now 7 months and really started playing up at puppy training 3 weeks ago.
He's not dramatically different but he's been trying it on a lot more ignoring commands, barking etc. Trainer told me I was letting him get away with too much, so am being a lot stricter with him.
Dont know if its a teenage thing or he's always going to be a bit headstrong. He might get a visit from the testicle fairy at this rate )
Ups and downs to be honest..
We had a trainer who went with the whole strict thing and I don't know if we're the typical middle class spoil the dog parents etc but we didn't like it. So we ditched the choke collar and got a hardness and ditched the "make them walk with you at all times" and let him have a sniff and whatnot, I figure walks are his time.
And actually over the last few months he's changed anyway, he's gotten a little better on walks, less lungy. We've managed to get the lead off him for weekend walks and he mostly comes back (although this weekend he did escape a field under a gate and then after I got him back literally bolted over a field after some other dogs on the same walk, I may as well have been someone he'd never met before) he just wants to play and sees everyone/dog/thing as a potential best friend. It's very sweet but a bit much.
I do wonder if it's more age, like he started cocking/marking finally about 4 weeks ago, barely stops now...
One thing that's really helped is we came across this great dogsitter who has a mix of dogs pretty much every day so we take him there roughly once a week so we can work in peace and he gets time with other dogs which has really calmed him down.
We're sure the testicle fairy will visit but not until he's about 18 months. I want him to properly round out, there's a lab that needed them off at like 7 months (medical reason apparently) at the sitters and he looks like a girl... I'm putting the time in now so we can have a lumbery old round faced bloke at some point.
However, we did finally properly look through the pack that came with him and the pic of his dad would suggest he's just going to be a lean lump of muscle forever. Proper award winning gundog and they look pretty much identical.
10.5 months, I'd guess just over 30kg lol.