Saturday, December 5, 2015

Adolescent Dogs

Living with our four legged youngsters is often quite entertaining, but can also be very challenging for human beings and dogs alike. Throughout this article we are following our youngest family member Levin in his development. Levin is a 12-month-old male Field Trial Golden Retriever and he is in his adolescence. The term adolescence derives from the Latin word „adolescere“, which means „growing up“. The transition from puppy to juvenile is a fluent development. When loosing his puppy teeth the dog is no longer a puppy, but rather a young dog. The dog has outgrown his puppy boots, he has bowed out of his milk teeth and hormones will now start to intensify and the next steps of development start.

With Levin we could also smell the „young dog“. The pleasant puppy smell disappeared bit by bit and for a little while his coat smelled neutral. But almost overnight we realized the peewee smelt like a „real dog“.

It is not only the sex hormones that are working overtime, but the dog’s brain gets turned into a huge construction site. We will come back to this later on in the article.

During puberty, juveniles reach sexual maturity. This happens quite early with most domesticated animals (as well as with human beings), but it does not mean that the individual is automatically an adult, bringing along with it a certain emotional and mental maturity.

Theoretically, the dogs are now able to “produce” offspring. But sexual maturity does not imply that the dog will show a great interest in breeding. Sexual instinct often develops slower. If a two or three year old male dog, which is meant for breeding, does not have much drive to mate with a bitch, this is not an unusual behavior. Often the male dog is just not that far in his personal development.
Read the entire article

Like Us on Facebook
Follow on Twitter

No comments: