The Adolescent Brain

Adolescent dogs are - among all age groups - at the highest risk of abandonment because of the behavioral challenges that arise during this time. They are perceived as troublemakers, and the truth is that those challenges are real!

Unfortunately, there is a considerable lack of knowledge about this crucial developmental stage and quite a few urban legends about the reasons adolescent dogs behave the way they do. Together, these often lead to the use of more severe, aversive methods for education, compromising the bond between the adolescent dog and their human, and often causing additional harm in the long term. 

In this course, I invite you to take a look into the adolescent brain with me and understand what mechanisms are at work, why they occur, their impact on behavior, and the strategies you can use in order to make adolescence a window of opportunity for the relationship with your dog instead of a period that needs to be "sit out". 

The course includes:

• Basic neuroscience concepts
• Timeline of brain development
• The role of cognition
• Changes in brain architecture during adolescence
• Relationship between those changes and "typical" adolescent behaviors
• Vulnerabilities specific to adolescents
• Strategies to support adolescent dogs