Teenagers are a pain in the ass. Our parents felt the same about us. We felt the same when our siblings got to the age of 16-17. And if we have kids, they are going to be real arseholes during their teenage years as well.
But apparently, it turns out, us humans aren’t the only ones who go through this phase of incessant mood swings. According to The Guardian, dogs, too, become a bit of nuisance during their teenage years.
Which would explain all my half-eaten shoes!
According to researchers dogs become less responsive to instructions during adolescence. Dr Lucy Asher, co-author of the research at Newcastle University said:
Generally teenagers that have a less secure relationship with their parents are those that are more likely to show more conflict behaviour towards their parents… That’s the same finding that we have between adolescent dogs and their carers.
She explained the findings a bit more and said:
Perhaps they are not misbehaving just because they are naughty, but it is just like in humans – the hormones are raging and there are things going on in the brain… We know that there are hormonal changes and we know there is a big reorganisation of the brain that occurs around that time across mammals, so we are fairly confident that is something that is going on in dogs.
Asher said that she was hoping her research would help owners be more understanding of their dogs and cut them some slack and essentially no abandon them on the streets or at shelters when the animals get a little out of hand.