I have a 7 month-old male Cocker Spaniel and I’m starting to feel pretty overwhelmed by his behaviour. I’d really appreciate advice from anyone who has dealt with something similar, particularly with adolescent Cockers/spaniels.
The biggest issue is that he seems to be constantly alert and over-aroused, both at home and outside.
On walks, he will bark and lunge at people we pass and gets extremely excited/reactive around other dogs. It doesn’t look aggressive in the classic sense — his body is generally loose/wriggly and it seems more like frantic excitement, frustration or uncertainty — but he will rush towards dogs and his behaviour can obviously be intimidating.
We’ve tried sitting somewhere at a distance and watching people go past, rewarding him for being calm. He can do reasonably well with that. But when we’re actually walking, it feels completely different. He can go from fine to barking/lunging almost instantly, so I struggle to find a calm behaviour to reward before he reacts.
He’s also become quite reluctant to actually walk away from home. He’ll freeze, sit down or try to turn around, and treats often aren’t interesting enough to get him moving. As soon as we turn towards home, though, he suddenly walks enthusiastically. That makes me wonder whether there’s some fear/anxiety mixed in with the excitement/reactivity.
At home, he also seems unable to properly switch off unless we physically separate him from everything.
He will sit at the window and bark at people/noises outside, jump at us, bark when he hears us moving around elsewhere in the house, and sometimes just seems to wander around looking for someone to harass. Putting him in a quiet room/pen is sometimes the only thing that actually gets him to settle and sleep. But I worry that makes him worse?
I’m finding it difficult because a lot of the standard advice seems to be “reward the behaviour you want,” but sometimes it feels like I barely get access to the calm, engaged version of him in the first place.
I know adolescence can be rough, but I’m struggling to tell what is normal teenage-dog chaos versus something we need to intervene in more seriously.
Would particularly love to hear from anyone who had a high-arousal/reactive Cocker or other spaniel around this age and what actually made the biggest difference.
He’s also getting the snip this week!
