Why Has My Teenage Dog Stopped Listening? Recall During Adolescence

Erin Dixon
Aug 27
10 min read

Springer spaniel, focuses on owner. Recall during adolescence. — Saga, Teenage Springer Spaniel, practicing recall skills

Do you remember when your puppy used to come flying back every time you called?

You probably felt quite smug about it. All that recall training was paying off. You had cracked it.

Then, a few months later, you called their name and they briefly acknowledged that a noise had occurred somewhere behind them before carrying on with whatever they were doing. You called again. Nothing. You may as well have started speaking fluent Finnish.

Welcome to adolescence.

It can feel personal, especially when the same dog trots straight over to your trainer, your friend or a complete stranger and performs every cue they apparently no longer understand at home. But your dog has not suddenly become stubborn, dominant or ungrateful. They have not deliberately deleted everything you taught them.

Their brain, body and priorities are changing. The skills are still there, but access to them becomes much less reliable when the rest of the world suddenly feels incredibly important.

When does adolescence begin in dogs?

There is no single birthday on which every dog wakes up as a teenager. Puberty often begins somewhere around six months, but timing varies with breed, size, sex and the individual dog. Larger breeds can mature later, and behavioural adolescence may continue long after a dog becomes physically capable of reproducing.

Researchers have suggested that the broader adolescent period in dogs can extend from around six months to approximately two years. That does not mean every dog will be equally ridiculous for eighteen solid months. Behaviour can change in waves. You may have several brilliant weeks followed by a period in which your dog appears to have outsourced all decision-making to a small moth.

It also helps to separate two related terms. Puberty is the biological process through which an animal becomes sexually mature. Adolescence is the longer transition from juvenile to adult, involving changes in the brain, behaviour, social relationships and independence as well as hormones.

What happens to the brain during dog adolescence?

People often talk about adolescent hormones as though testosterone or oestrogen simply floods the body and causes temporary insanity. The reality is more interesting.

Puberty activates the reproductive hormone system and changes the levels and patterns of gonadal hormones. These hormones do more than affect sexual behaviour. Across mammalian species, they interact with developing brain systems involved in motivation, emotion, learning, social behaviour and responses to stress.

At the same time, the adolescent brain is being reorganised. Connections that are used and strengthened become more efficient, while others are refined or pruned. Communication between brain regions continues to develop. The systems that notice rewards, novelty, social opportunities and emotionally significant events can become highly active while the networks involved in inhibition, planning and consistent self-control are still maturing.

In plain English: the accelerator can become very exciting before the brakes are completely dependable.

We need to be careful not to pretend that every detail established in human or rodent neuroscience has been directly demonstrated in pet dogs. Canine adolescence is still surprisingly under-researched. However, we do know that mammalian puberty involves significant hormonal and neural change, and the behavioural pattern is very familiar: more exploration, greater interest in social information, shifting motivations and less consistent responses in highly stimulating situations.

That is why a dog can genuinely know a cue and still fail to respond to it. Knowing something in the kitchen is not the same as being able to do it while another dog is running, a pheasant has just lifted from the hedge and the ground contains breaking news from every dog in the village.

Why are teenagers of so many species like this?

Adolescence is not a design fault. It is a necessary transition.

Young mammals cannot remain completely dependent on their caregivers forever. In many species, adolescence coincides with increasing independence, exploration outside the familiar area, changing social relationships and—depending on the species and sex—dispersal away from the group or place in which they were born.

An adolescent animal who was only interested in staying close to home, avoiding every risk and doing exactly what a parent wanted would be wonderfully convenient. Evolutionarily, however, they would be poorly prepared to find resources, form adult social relationships, reproduce or establish themselves elsewhere.

This does not mean your dog is consciously planning to leave home and start a new life behind the bins at Pets at Home. Domestic dogs are not wolves, and living with humans has profoundly shaped their development and social behaviour. But they share the broader mammalian transition: the familiar becomes relatively less compelling, while novelty, exploration and the wider social world gain value.

What looks like “testing boundaries” is not usually a calculated attempt to seize control of the household. It is a young animal experimenting with what works, what is safe, what is rewarding and how much independence is available. Boundaries are discovered through consequences and experience. If charging across a field produces an exhilarating chase, three new friends and twenty minutes of freedom, that lesson may matter far more to the dog than us standing at the gate looking betrayed.

Human teenagers show their version of the same broad developmental job. Their relationships with parents change, peers become increasingly important, they seek more autonomy, and novelty and reward can carry enormous weight. It can create conflict precisely because the young individual is becoming less dependent while the caregiver is still responsible for keeping them safe.

Why will my adolescent dog listen to someone else but not me?

You are not imagining this bit.

A 2020 study carried out with potential guide dogs compared their responses before and during adolescence. At eight months old, the dogs took longer to respond to a familiar sit cue when it was given by their main caregiver—but not when it was given by a stranger. Caregivers also rated the adolescent dogs as less trainable, while trainers who knew them less well reported an improvement.

The effect was specific to the relationship. It was not simply that the dogs had become incapable of sitting or learning.

Researchers described it as a temporary period of caregiver-specific conflict-like behaviour, with interesting parallels to parent–teenager relationships. The effect was more marked in dogs whose behaviour suggested a less secure relationship with their caregiver, which gives us another reason not to turn adolescence into a war.

Your dog behaving for somebody else is not proof that they respect that person more. A less familiar person may be novel, their cues may occur in a different context, and the dog does not have the same long history of reinforcement, frustration and negotiation with them. Home is often where teenagers of several species display their most spectacular opinions.

Why recall often falls apart first

Recall is unusually vulnerable during adolescence because it is never just one behaviour.

Coming when called can require a dog to:

notice us while processing an exciting environment;
disengage from a smell, dog, person, animal or movement;
inhibit the thing they were about to do;
turn away from a potentially valuable opportunity;
travel back toward us;
tolerate being touched or having the lead attached; and
believe that returning will be worth it.

That is a substantial chain of skills. We tend to judge the whole chain by the final outcome—did the dog come back?—but each part needs to be learned and practised.

A puppy who recalls in a quiet field has made an excellent start. They have not necessarily learned to leave a running dog, abandon a fresh wildlife trail or turn away from a person who looks likely to provide snacks. When adolescence increases the value of exploring and decreases consistency around distractions, the gaps in that education become much easier to see.

Why punishment is particularly unhelpful

An adolescent dog is not weighing up your disapproval against the long-term consequences of their behaviour like a tiny furry accountant. Immediate rewards tend to matter enormously. The chase is happening now. The smell is available now. The other dog is running now.

Shouting, grabbing or physically correcting a dog after they return does not make the chase less exciting and it does not teach them how to disengage next time. It can make approaching us, being caught or having the lead attached feel unpleasant.

Even if the dog connects the correction with something they did earlier—which we should not assume—the lesson may be “avoid being caught” rather than “come promptly when called.” We can end up poisoning the final part of the recall while leaving the attraction of the original distraction completely intact.

Adolescence is also a vulnerable time in the dog–caregiver relationship. The guide-dog study’s authors specifically warned against punishment or emotionally withdrawing from dogs during this stage because it could worsen problem behaviour. They need clearer teaching, appropriate outlets and better management, not a running feud with the person they depend on.

Or, put more simply: if we become a dick whenever they finally come within reach, we should not be surprised when coming within reach loses its appeal.

Make their world temporarily smaller—not permanently poorer

Putting an adolescent dog back on a long line is not failure. It is sensible management.

Freedom should match the skills the dog can use in that environment today, not the skills they demonstrated three months ago in an empty field. A long line prevents a poor decision from becoming a fantastic self-rewarding adventure, while still giving the dog room to move, sniff and explore.

Making their world smaller does not mean removing everything enjoyable. Adolescent dogs need safe opportunities to run, investigate, play, use their bodies and practise independence. The aim is to arrange those opportunities so they are not repeatedly rehearsing disappearing over the horizon.

That might mean:

choosing quieter walks for a while;
creating more distance from dogs, wildlife or busy paths;
using secure fields for proper off-lead running;
attaching a long line before entering a difficult area;
socialising at a distance instead of greeting every dog;
walking with carefully chosen dogs rather than joining a free-for-all; and
ending while your dog can still think, rather than waiting until their brain has left the building.

Management is not a substitute for training. It is what allows training to work.

The recall skills adolescent dogs actually need

Rather than endlessly testing a recall cue and discovering that it is currently optional, break the behaviour into useful pieces.

1. Checking in

Notice and reward your dog when they choose to look back at you without being asked. These small voluntary check-ins are the foundations of staying connected outdoors.

2. Disengaging

Teach your dog that noticing something does not require travelling all the way to it. Practise looking at a distraction from a workable distance, then turning back to you. Distance is not cheating; it is how we create a situation in which the dog can succeed.

3. Turning toward you

Practise quick, happy turns in easy places. Reward the moment your dog commits to turning, not only when they eventually arrive at your feet.

4. Moving with you

Build games in which following your movement is enjoyable. Change direction, run a few steps, hide briefly or reward your dog for catching up. We want returning to feel active and worthwhile, not like the formal end of all fun.

5. Being caught

Reach for the harness or collar, feed, and release the dog again. Clip the lead on without always going straight home. A dog who predicts loss of freedom every time hands approach may learn to hover just beyond reach.

6. Responding around gradually harder distractions

Difficulty needs to be built, not wished into existence. Start far enough away that your dog can respond. Practise successfully, then reduce distance or increase movement in small steps. If they cannot do it, make the next repetition easier instead of saying the cue louder.

7. Returning and going back to the fun

Not every recall needs to end the walk. Call your dog, reward them and release them to sniff again when it is safe. Returning to you should become part of the adventure rather than the full stop at the end of it.

Stop testing and start teaching

One of the biggest changes we can make is to stop using recall only when we desperately need it.

If the cue is repeatedly used when the dog is very unlikely to respond, the dog gets lots of practice hearing it and carrying on. We then repeat it, become frustrated and eventually go to collect them. The word becomes background noise.

Call when you have a reasonable chance of success. Use the long line when you do not. Reward generously. Practise the component skills around manageable distractions. If the dog is already fully committed to chasing something, the useful learning opportunity probably existed thirty seconds earlier—when they first noticed it and could still think.

The very best way to stop a dog rehearsing fucking off is not to let them keep fucking off.

Will neutering fix adolescent behaviour?

It is tempting to blame every adolescent change on sex hormones and assume neutering will restore the puppy you had before. Behaviour and biology are much more complicated than that.

Puberty hormones contribute to development, but adolescence also involves learning, brain maturation, breed traits, previous experience, the environment and the rewards available in the moment. Neutering is not a recall-training programme, and it cannot teach disengagement, self-control or how to make good choices around wildlife and other dogs.

Decisions about neutering should be discussed with your vet and considered for the individual dog, rather than used as a quick solution for ordinary teenage behaviour.

Your dog is not broken

Adolescence can make it feel as though all your earlier work has vanished. It has not. Development is not a smooth line, and performance is not the same thing as knowledge.

Your dog may be able to respond beautifully in one situation and fall apart in another. That tells us something about the current level of distraction, arousal and skill—not that the dog is choosing to ruin your day.

This period can be frustrating, but it is also full of opportunity. The adolescent brain is learning what matters. Every successful check-in, every turn away from a distraction and every safe return helps build the adult dog who will eventually be able to cope with a much bigger world.

Keep teaching. Keep playing. Use the long line. Give them appropriate ways to explore and take sensible risks. Notice the good decisions before they become the things you take for granted.

Their brain is under renovation, the decision-making department is temporarily understaffed, and every interesting smell has been marked urgent.

This stage passes—but what they practise while they are in it matters.

How we can help

If your teenage dog appears to have misplaced their recall, you do not need to wait and hope they grow out of it. Our classes help dogs and their people build engagement, disengagement and useful real-world skills in a supportive environment.

Our Foundation classes and our Sports classes are great for building engagement, disengagement skills as well as focus, impulse control and confidence.

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We also have a short, self paced online course packed full of information and practical exercises. Have a look at our Engage & Excel program.

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