一项新的研究显示，狗狗在8个月大的时候会经历相似的倔强叛逆的阶段。狗狗不仅会像我们一样有一个麻烦的青春期，而且也和我们十多岁时一样，对父母或者照顾我们的人很失望。这对长期犬类护理和保护意义重大。

Perhaps you've had to put up with a moody¹, uncooperative teenager. You may well have been one yourself. A new study suggests that dogs go through a similar phase of stubbornness and disobedience when they hit puberty at about eight months old.

 

Looking at the behaviour of a total of 378 canines⁴, researchers found that the animals were more obedient and more responsive either side of that eight-month mark – but only when it came to their owners, not to less familiar trainers.

 

So not only do dogs appear to have a difficult adolescence⁵ just like we do, they also share the frustration⁶ that we often feel towards our parents or caregivers when we hit our teenage years. That has big implications for long-term canine³ care and sheltering.

 

"This is a very important time in a dog's life," says animal behaviour researcher Lucy Asher, from Newcastle University in the UK. "This is when dogs are often rehomed because they are no longer a cute little puppy and suddenly, their owners find they are more challenging and they can no longer control them or train them."

 

"But as with human teenage children, owners need to be aware that their dog is going through a phase and it will pass."

 

In one experiment with 93 Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers and their cross breeds, the pooches at eight months old were found to take longer and be more reluctant to respond to a 'sit' command given by their caregiver than they were when just five months old. The eight-month-olds didn't show the same obstinance when the command was given by a stranger, though.

 

The researchers found further evidence of this effect in survey data gathered on 285 Labradors, golden retrievers, German shepherds and their cross breeds. Dog owners and trainers less familiar with the dogs were asked to evaluate the animals' 'trainability' by answering questions on obedience² and how quickly commands were responded to.

 

Again, the caregivers ranked their dogs as less obedient at eight months old compared with five months old or 12 months old. The trainers reported that obedience increased between the ages of five months and eight months.

 

 

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