Nuffle & the chicken... hello secondary fear period 🙈.

For those of you who have followed Nuffles’ journey; you will know that his exposure to new objects, and experiences has been vast. He was ‘well socialised’ in this regard having had awesome breeders to give him the best start @ivormyth, which was continued and is still ongoing.

So imagine my surprise when we visited a friends house and he completely freaked out at a chicken ornament!!! I mean barking, tail under, back & forth movement, cowering, full on “Mummy what on earth is this!!”

Anyone with a dog between 6&14months (ish); will have experienced something similar and I’m here to let you know ITS NORMAL!! 😃

As dogs begin sexual maturity, timing can vary between breeds and individuals. They go through this ‘secondary sensitive period’, which can last for a greater or lesser part of their adolescent period.

This is nature’s way of ensuring confident, hormonal, youngsters don’t get themselves into trouble. It gives them a healthy dose of caution. However, this is a sensitive age and bad experiences, if not handled with care can affect their behaviour as adults.

If your teenage dog is starting to act differently, here are some tips 🙂
*Avoid the triggers
*Go back to basic training & build their confidence through positive reinforcement
*Play games with them
*Go at their pace, don’t force them, they need to know you have their back.

If you’re worried contact your local positive dog trainer or clinical animal behaviourist 🙂

With some gentle praise and care Nuffle soon realized the chicken wasn’t going to eat him and he no longer cares about or the pond fish that it ‘guards’ (see earlier video if you want to see)

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Holly & the shoe!

I finds the shoe... I happy
I parade with the shoe.. I happy
I lie down with the shoe..*grins*
I hold the shoe... I happy
I told not to chew shoe...I sulky

#happylab #happydog #happydogs #happydoglife #doggo #doggosdoingthings #doggosbeingdoggos #doggosofinstagram #labrador #labrador_lovers #labradorable #chocolatelab #chocolatelabsofinstagram #dogs #dogslife #dogsofinstagram #dogtrainersofinstagram #dogtrainers #dogtrainerslife #geekydogtrainer