Bramley is now 18 months old!

Time really does fly.  It doesn’t feel like we’ve had our pup for that long and it wasn’t that long ago that he was a small pup with gangly long legs.  Now he is a handsome boy, still very long legs, but he’s in control of them now! 
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Setter’s do take time to mature so we are still very much in the ‘adolescence’ stage of development, and I wanted to share what it is like to have a young male dog. 

Teenage boys take lots of management to get them through adolescence without hopefully getting them into trouble with other older males.  I personally find this a harder time with males than females, but of course each dog is different.  With young males, you need to find the balance of keeping up their social skills around other dogs without them learning to become a socialite that just expects everyone to be their new best friend.  Hormones of course impact this as their interest in females increases and the tolerance from other older males can often be limited.  Finding the path through is definitely tricky. 
 
Most of our local walks are quiet, so only meeting a handful of dogs a week, so we have to be proactive and take him out to locations where we can practise being around other dogs and people; not allow him to play with everyone he meets (that would be his choice) but hopefully find a couple of dogs that he can have a quick hello to.  This all involves management.  The word I think most of us hate to hear.  It’s the word that means hard work, it means not just letting your dog off lead to do what they want, it means using a long line (and let’s face it, most of use don’t like using them as they are hard work), but without management I know I will be setting my dog up to fail and therefore it is my fault when it goes wrong.  I know he will want to play with every dog he meets and chase some wildlife, so it’s my responsibility to manage Bramley and set him up for success.  There are some walks I am happy to let him off lead, but the majority he is on his long line. 
 
My goal for a dog walk is: to give my dogs some exercise, to give them an outlet for their energy, to allow them to ‘be a dog’ and get lots of sniffing and exploring time, and to practise the skills I want them to be good at such as recall, lead skills, focus on me, and ignore/be neutral about some things that are in the environment.  Bramley’s prey drive is now of course in full swing (as expected) and we are spending lots of our training time working on getting this desire under control so that we can use it when suitable (e.g. during gundog training classes) and ask him to have impulse control at times when it’s not suitable or safe. I want to set my dog up for success – this is my mantra that I tell my clients as well.  If you know your dog is likely to get it wrong, find it too hard, rehearse unwanted behaviour – then why are you taking them to that place or not using management better? 

Am I dreaming of not having to use a long line – yes! Absolutely.  Am I finding it hard sometimes to fit in the extra training time having a young dog requires – yes! Whilst still giving my older 2 dogs what they need as well – yes!  It’s my choice to have 3 dogs and they all have their own needs, and I do my best to make it work.  This doesn’t happen every week, and I don’t beat myself up if it doesn’t always go to plan. 

Bramley is really my husband’s dog, and he is really loving taking him gundog training and scent training, but he is also finding it hard (as we both do) because raising a young dog is hard work.  However, we know that the effort we put in now will be worth it and we will have a fantastic well-rounded dog.  Bramley is such a super dog; kind, gentle, funny and still loves to get up early!! We are so glad that we added another Red & White Setter to our family and the friendship he and Hallie has is such a wonderful thing to watch which wasn’t expected.  Cuba is happy to let the youngsters play without him 😊

Adolescence isn’t a time to squash a dog’s personality, it’s not a problem to ‘fix’, it’s a time to get to know them, to allow them time to develop and help them work through the challenges that you should expect to come. 

If you are raising a young dog, then please take your time, have patience, laugh (because sometimes that’s all you can do) and get help if you are struggling.  There aren’t quick fixes, but with the right help and guidance you can definitely enjoy the journey. 
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Jo x