How to Survive Your Gundog’s Adolescent Stage

If your gundog training has suddenly fallen off the rails, it might not be anything to do with you.

Studies have proven that when our gundogs reach adolescence, they are less likely to follow our cues, even if they have been eager and willing to respond in the past.

Puppies usually reach the "teenage stage" at around six months old. And it can last until they are around 18 to 24 months, depending on the breed and your individual dog.

If you're suddenly noticing that your cooperative puppy has turned into a rebel who won't respond and will ignore you completely, don't panic - just be mindful that your gundog is growing up.

Gundog training right now probably feels like an uphill battle. Even day-to-day life with an adolescent dog can feel bewildering, exhausting, and often downright disheartening.

But your dog isn’t broken, and there’s nothing wrong with you or your training (even if it does now feel like everything you taught them as a pup has been totally pointless).

Adolescence is a completely normal, if slightly chaotic, stage in your dog’s development. It’s a time of massive brain change, emotional upheaval, and hormonal shifts, much like it is for human teenagers. And just like teenagers, adolescent dogs often act before they think, struggle with emotional regulation, and find it hard to focus, especially when they’re overwhelmed or excited.

It can be tricky to know the best course of action during this time. And so in this blog, we’re going to take a deeper look at what’s really going on during your gundog’s adolescent phase, why your dog might be behaving so differently, and most importantly, what they need from you right now.

Using information kindly provided by Emma Stoker, BA, BSc, CDBC, PACT, in the masterclass she hosted for me, we’ll look at emotional responses, brain development, training adjustments, environmental factors like diet and sleep, and how to manage socialisation safely.

By the end, I hope you’ll feel more confident and more equipped to support your adolescent gundog through this tricky, yet temporary, phase.

What is adolescence? Aka: Why is my dog suddenly acting like this?

Adolescence in dogs is often misunderstood. It’s not just a phase where your dog gets a bit “cheeky” or “pushes boundaries”, it’s a significant developmental period where real, physical changes are happening inside their brain and body.

And once you understand what’s going on, those confusing and annoying behaviours, like suddenly forgetting everything you’ve taught them, start to make a lot more sense.

Let’s start with an important distinction: reproductive maturity is not the same as behavioural maturity. Your dog might become sexually mature (e.g. go through their first season or start showing an interest in mating) by around 7 to 9 months. But that doesn’t mean they’ve finished growing up.

In fact, most dogs won’t reach full behavioural maturity until somewhere between 18 and 24 months of age. Just because they look like an adult on the outside doesn’t mean their brain has finished developing on the inside.

During adolescence, the brain undergoes a complete remodelling. Two key areas are at play here: the striatum, which deals with emotion and motivation, and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and behavioural regulation.

But here’s the catch, the striatum develops much faster than the prefrontal cortex.

In other words, your adolescent gundog is full of feelings, drive, and urges... but they don’t yet have the brain structure to manage those feelings or think things through logically. It’s a bit like giving a Ferrari to a learner driver.

A visual way to explain this is with the house renovation analogy (credit here to Naomi Harvey from Nottingham University). Imagine you’re gutting the inside of a house. The outside still looks the same, it’s still your house, but inside, it’s chaos.

The walls are coming down, the wiring’s being redone, the plumber hasn’t shown up, and nothing is quite where it should be. That’s what your adolescent dog’s brain is like. From the outside, they might look like they’ve got it all together. But internally? It’s a building site.

This is why you might suddenly see behaviours you thought were long gone such as chasing, jumping, barking, and fear. Your dog isn’t trying to wind you up. They’re experiencing the world in a more intense way than before, with fewer tools to process it. Emotions like fear, frustration, and excitement are more intense, and their ability to regulate those emotions is still developing.

And just like with human teenagers, this phase doesn’t always look the same from one dog to the next. Some breeze through it with only a few minor blips. Others become impulsive, driven, and utterly single-minded seemingly overnight.

But again, it’s not defiance, it’s development. And with the right support, they will come out the other side.

What your adolescent gundog needs from you

Supporting a gundog through adolescence isn’t about pushing them harder or tightening the rules. It’s about understanding what they’re capable of in this stage of development and adjusting the environment, your expectations, and your training accordingly.

They’re not trying to get it wrong. They’re just not quite equipped to get it right all the time.

Here are some things you can do to help:

Manage the environment (so they can get it right)

One of the simplest ways to reduce stress and frustration, for both of you, is to control the environment so your dog isn’t set up to fail. That might mean going back to using a long line, especially in open spaces. You can avoid situations where they’re likely to become overstimulated, like a busy park, or on ground where there’s lots of game and scent. And instead, you’ll want to train in quieter, more familiar areas to build confidence and focus.

Revisit the basics

It’s completely normal for behaviours you thought were solid to unravel a bit during adolescence. Your gundog might suddenly struggle to focus, ignore cues, or forget how to walk nicely on a lead. The most helpful thing you can do is to meet your dog where they are right now. Use simple, familiar cues they already know and don’t think that now is the perfect time to teach them something new or complicated. Reinforce generously for getting it right and keep training sessions short, successful, and enjoyable.

Give them a structured and controlled outlet

Adolescent gundogs often experience a surge in drive and they want to chase, grab, bite, tug, and carry, so all the things that were bubbling under the surface during puppyhood can suddenly explode into full-blown behaviours. Instead of trying to suppress these urges, channel them with exercises that you can control. Teach them to chase a ball, but only on cue. Set up hunting scenarios in small spaces like a fenced garden where they can’t go awol.

Catch them getting it right.

It’s easy to notice the chaos, the pulling, the barking, the ignoring. But adolescent dogs are often trying really hard to figure things out, and they need us to recognise the moments they do get it right. Did your dog check in with you before chasing a bird? Reward it. Did they manage to walk past a distraction with just a quick glance? Brilliant. Let them know. Your dog’s brain is working overtime to navigate a noisy, exciting world. The more we acknowledge and reward the good behaviour, the more they’ll learn to offer it again.

What to do if your adolescent gundog has become “barky” or “reactive”

I remember once taking a very young, adolescent Grace out on a shoot day. Her training seemed to be coming on nicely, and I wanted to informally introduce her to the format of a picking up day - the waiting around, the shot, the birds, the other dogs etc.

What I wasn’t expecting was for her to be terrified of the Guns. Not the shotguns, but the actual people - dressed up in tweed, carrying big leather slips over their shoulders - and to my embarrassment, she proceeded to bark loudly, and angrily, at all of them in response to her fear.

You see, this is a sensitive period in your dog’s life. Their emotional responses are stronger, their confidence can dip, and they’re often far more reactive to novelty than they were just a few months ago.

They’re also becoming more aware of the world, which includes noticing things that might make them feel unsure or unsafe. So, it’s not unusual to see a previously bombproof puppy suddenly spook at a wheelie bin or shy away from people wearing hats (or, in Grace’s case, dressed in full shooting attire).

Because the adolescent brain is still wiring itself, negative experiences (especially those involving fear or frustration) can leave a lasting impression.

This means that we need to revisit “socialisation” but not in the same way as puppyhood and those critical early weeks when we try to expose our dogs to as many sights, sounds, people, and animals as possible.

In fact, trying to treat adolescence like an extension of puppy socialisation can often backfire.

Instead of rushing your adolescent gundog into new situations, focus on gently introducing them to unfamiliar environments, people, and experiences, with plenty of choice and distance.

Let them watch before asking them to interact, give them time to process what they’re seeing, don’t force greetings (especially with people or other dogs), use calm, quiet praise and let your dog take the lead on how close they want to get, and finally always have high-value rewards to mark moments of bravery or engagement.

The goal isn’t to tick off a checklist (like you might have done when they were a puppy), this is simply to help your dog feel safe in the world around them that they might be experiencing in a very new and different way.

If their confidence is on the wobble, it is our job to support, not push them. You might just want to let them sit at a distance and watch the world. Things like letting them process the sounds of a busy town from the comfort of your car might not seem like you’re doing anything helpful, but these moments can build resilience.

And if you give them the choice on how much they want to interact with whatever is worrying them, they will also learn that they’re safe, that you’ll listen to them, and that they can trust you.

Adolescence can feel like a storm, but it is just a phase and with the right support and a bit of patience, your gundog will come out the other side more emotionally balanced, more engaged, and better able to cope with the world around them.

There’s a lot more to explore on this topic than we could fit into this one blog post.

If you’d like to dive deeper, the Adolescent Gundogs masterclass with Emma Stoker is available now to watch on replay for just £25.

The full 90-minute video goes into even greater detail about the emotional and neurological changes during adolescence, and also covers essential topics like diet, sleep, training and management, behavioural adjustment training, and neutering.

It’s a must-watch for anyone raising an adolescent gundog and wanting to support them in the most informed way possible.

To get instant access to the masterclass, please click here: https://www.completelygundogs.co.uk/courses/adolescent-gundogs

Once again, thanks and credit go to Emma Stoker BA. BSc. CDBC. PACT for putting together such a fantastic and informative resource. You can find out more about Emma and her behavioural services here: https://www.puppyplus.co.uk/