Obedience training is a life long lesson for many dogs. It's likely that she's going through her "terrible teens" because of her age, and that she's trying to jostle for a higher rank in your pack. This is why adding the NILIF practices to your everyday life is very important. It makes them have to work for *everything*, which reinforces your status as leader and provider.
My 6 year old is a particularily dominant girl. She's very secure in her order in the pack where my other bitches are concerned, but I'm pretty sure that her primary goal in life is to get one up on me.
(Hubby would tell you that he's boss, but I know that she has him wrapped right around her paw. :lol: ) This means constant reinforcement that she is NOT allowed to lead the pack on our walks; she must be in either heel position or where I tell her to be (in the tree lawn, etc). She cannot whine or whimper (demand) to be fed, and she has to sit before being fed. She must be invited up on the furniture. She has to sit before and after entering doors, and I walk out of the door first. She has to defer to me while decending stairs. She has to sit for petting and not demand it when I'm done by pushing me and/or climbing up on my lap or leaning into me, etc. If she pushes me, I simply get up and walk away, many times causing her to topple over in the process. :lol:
These are things that we've done with her since the time that she set foot in our home, and this will be a way of life for her (and us) until the time she passes on. While it did get worse when she was going through her teenage stage, it was always present and she has always been a very confident, very dominant girl, and we knew from the time that we picked her up at the breeders that she would need a lot of trianing and reinforcement once we got her home. The good news is that it did lessen after she hit about two and a half, but it is still there.
