Zooka's 17th month, September 2020, was full of hikes, visits to the mountains, and snuggles  – many of my favorite things!

Your dog's adolescence is a time generally filled with great progress mixed in with some (hopefully short-term) regressions and new behaviors that crop up from time to time. One thing it never is though? Dull!

This month, a lot more SNUGGLING happened, so the Momma (that's me) was very happy. One of many reasons that I love the Vizsla breed is that they tend to be big snugglers. And I LOVE to snuggle with my dogs. Zooka is definitely not as big a snuggler as our previous Vizsla, Romeo was. Romeo would snuggle with me (well, INSIST on snuggling with me) pretty much any time I sat down. Did not matter how small the space, how hot the temperature, or how inconvenient snuggling might have been at the time. Zooka has been less so. He will snuggle at times, for a period of time, and then move elsewhere. But I have seen an increase in his snuggling this month.

One of the reasons for some of the additional snuggling is that we made a transition in our nighttime sleeping arrangements. When our dogs are young, they sleep in a crate or pen in our bedroom. As they get older, they still have their crate/pen but it is not closed at night. We made this transition in September. Zooka still sleeps in his pen, but the door is not closed at night now. I started it when Ed was out of town for a few nights.

Once Zooka realized the door was open, he started letting himself out of the pen in the morning instead of needing to wait for me to open it. Sometimes he comes out of it during the night and will go sleep part of the night in the living room. Which is fine with us. We no longer need to worry about housetraining or destructiveness so he can sleep elsewhere if he wants. Usually he will return to his pen at some point and spends most nights and most of each night in his pen.

The change, and where the snuggling comes in, is in the morning. Ed is an early riser. Sue prefers to sleep until there is actual natural light in the world, indication morning has actually arrived. Most of the time, Zooka gets up with me. So, the new rule is that Zooka is allowed to come up on the bed and snuggle with me after Ed gets up.

Zooka loves snuggling with me in the morning. And most of the time he waits until Ed gets up. (I did have to tell him to get OFF one night when he tried to join me in the middle of the night.) Some mornings, it seems like he's just waiting for Ed to get the heck out of bed so Zooka can take his turn. Sometimes Ed barely gets out before Zooka jumps up and joins me.

The “snuggle-in-the-morning rule” actually started with Zuzu after Romeo died. She was never a big snuggler, but we developed a routine after we lost Romeo that she and I would snuggle in the morning after Ed got up. Zooka and I have decided to continue that tradition now.

Zooka is continuing to do well on his off leash walks. We do some on leash and some off leash. When we do get out places, it is clear we have not been spending enough time working on our rock solid leash manners. We really enjoy our off leash walking, but we do need to devote more time to on leash skills.

We continue with all of our other training. Heel work, Around, Over, Under, Stays, Waits, Come, Touch, Targeting, etc. He is doing well with all of his training. We also started introducing SIDE. He has been working on Heel from the very beginning. We are now introducing “Side” which means the same thing as Heel but on the right side rather than the left. So far we are only working on getting TO that position and not walking in that position.

We have been getting in more training sessions with other dogs. When we have boarding dogs who need some work, I often work Zooka with them. And sometimes all of the boarding dogs who are there as well. So if we have one boarding dog who has some planned training sessions with me while staying with us, I will work mostly with that dog separately from the other dogs. However, one of the challenges is getting the dog to respond to the stuff they know when there are other dogs or other distractions nearby. So we do some sessions with all of the dogs for the benefit of the one dog. All of the dogs enjoy it. Zooka included. And he gets good practice listening with one, two, or more other dogs in close proximity.

We did more hiking this month. We also made our annual anniversary trip to Snow Mountain Ranch where we rent a cabin for a few nights and do a lot of hiking. Zooka loves it. Hiking much of the day. Eating lots of snacks. Spending 24/7 with his Momma and Dad. Getting to see deer, moose, horses, birds, squirrels, chipmunks. What's not to love about that?!

He did really well on our hikes and our stay in the mountains. He's not perfect on his long line hiking – he does some pulling when he's excited  – mostly when he spots deer or chipmunks. So he is clearly no where near ready for off leash hikes in the mountains yet. If there were no deer or moose around, he would be really good off leash. But we can't take the chance on him spotting deer and chasing before we can leash him up. We do not want him practicing undesirable behaviors and developing bad habits during adolescence. So the off leash hiking will wait.

At one point on one of our hikes, Zooka caught a field mouse. Yes, he was on leash (on his long line) but he still caught it. As soon as I realized he had it in his mouth, I told him to drop it and he did. What a very good boy!

During our stay at Snow Mountain Ranch, we had an interesting first night going to bed. We had Zooka's dog bed with us and set it at the foot of the bed in the cabin so he would sleep there at night. I was in bed, doing some reading, and Ed was still getting ready for bed. Zooka decided he was going to snuggle with me. Ed told him to get off the bed. Zooka did. As soon as Ed turned away, Zooka jumped up again on the bed. Ed got him off again.

This repeated several times. And when I say several, I do not mean two or three times. I mean more like eight or ten times. Maybe I should not have laughed, but I did. I laughed pretty hard. Zooka never does this at home, but he decided vacation rules were different. Ed did not find it so funny, but Zooka slept on his bed all night once we went to bed. And did not snuggle with me in the morning until Ed was already up. Per our “at home” rules.

Do we still have some adolescent antics going on? You bet. Is he rock solid on everything we ask him to do? Absolutely not. Is he doing pretty darn good for a teenager without a fully developed brain. You bet.

I have high expectations for him. But I allow for some inconsistencies during adolescence. Those high expectations gradually get raised as we go along. But I need to keep REALISTIC expectations for the adolescent stage.

Zooka is a very very good boy.

Our goal is to positively impact the lives of as many dogs and their families as we can, in part through our extensive library of video, infographics and text articles. If you like our work, please consider supporting us through a donation!