Buster is just over 17 months old now - he cocked his leg for the first time today :) I was starting to worry about that - phew!

Also his behaviour has altered slightly, he seems to have much more self control. For example, I play fight with him, he loves it, but before I've always had to stop it because he gets carried away and starts getting too rough (pulls my hair, bites my clothes hard which has left me a few bruises where he's caught my skin). 2 nights ago we had a play fight that I didn't have to stop, it ended up with him laying on his back, legs in the air getting a belly rub, then falling asleep :) Also, with visitors he's much calmer and isn't trying to jump all over them/chew thier sleeves/shove his nose up thier bum (that's embarasing, he can lift you off you're feet doing that) .

I am so pleased it's all starting to fall into place and was expecting the 'kevin' stage to be getting worse and lasting for much longer and expecting him to get much harder to handle when he started to cock his leg - is this the 'calm before the storm' ? or is everything simply sinking in now? He can still be exitable with stupid moments, but even my OH can stop these now without me having to back him up.
Now, the 'worst' behavior he has is sniffing the ground on a walk, normal sniffing's fine but sometimes he anchors to the ground & I can't move him without a struggle, but if that's the only thing there is about him I want to change (bear in mind he's a 17month old entire male), I'm still rather proud of him :)

awwww your such a proud mummy! well done you for getting through it, you make it sound like a breeze!

Thanks :)
I'm a bit disapointed as he hasn't cocked his leg again since :( But at least I know he's physically capeable of it, I was starting to worry that maybee his ED was the problem (bearing the weight of the cocked leg on the front legs), but obviosly he can do it, just isn't getting the constant urge. Bless him, I think it confuses him, he rarely wees when on a walk, but recently he found a very interesting scent, he stood there looking puzzled and all of a sudden squatted & had a wee on it - I think he felt the urge to mark it, but isn't quite getting exactly how to do it!

I spoke too soon about him being so calm, he nearly pulled me off my feet jumping towards a dog today If he pays too much attention to passing dogs I'll stand still while they pass and Buster waits 'nicely', but I carried on walking towards them today & it was obviously far too exiting for him to contain himself anylonger and he dived forward (still not close enough to the other dog to actually land on it thankfully), the other dog was not happy & told him off with some barking, which Buster replied to with a huge play-bow. He still doesn't realise that most dogs don't find a play-bow from a dog his size very reasuring :(

my boy is 13months now, and sometimes cocks his leg, most often doesnt. its very cute when he does!
i know how you feel about talking too soon, last week my boy was off lead and spotted a small dog in distance, i hadnt noticed it, started running towards it in excitement, i almost didnt call on him as its usually pointless when he starts running, but i did, and he stopped! looked around, and then came back to me!! i was in complete shock, actually looked him over to make sure he wasnt ill lol. so i was feeling all good about this, and then this week he went off playing with a husky and a spaniel and it was 10minutes before he came back to me :(   oh well.

> i was in complete shock, actually looked him over to make sure he wasnt ill lol

LOL, when they suddenly behave so well it does make you think they are ill!!! That is fantastic he came bake like that, I bet you were so proud of him - when you realised he wasn't ill!!!! :)

>he went off playing with a husky and a spaniel and it was 10minutes before he came back to me

Bless him, he was having too much fun! It's great that he can play with other dogs though, just what they need to learn doggy manners and what better fun than playing with dogs :)  He may have been enjoying himself too much that time, but at least you know he knows how to come back with distraction about, it's just a case of him getting some more self control and loosing that impulsiveness they have before they are fully mature.

It's lovey seeing little bits of all the hard work paying off though, even if they do 're-lapse' now & then, it's like a little glimpse of whats to come when they mature - a testament to all our hard work :)

Ahhh, our babies are growing up - soon they'll even be full time leg-cockers! :)

I envy you!  mines just started the kevin stage!!!  17 months old you say!!! argh!!  that means I have 6 months to go!  eak!

aww! and early developer perhaps? you might be lucky and skip the kevins entirely.

i wouldn't worry about the leg, he might not do it all the time now he's started so don't worry if he doesn't. we've never had a boy who did it consistantly.

what a proud mum you sound :)

> you might be lucky and skip the kevins entirely.
>

YAY!!!!! that would be great :-D

I wondering if the fact my OH has been home over christmas has helped, even now he's back at work he's not working weekends & weekdays he's home by 6pm (that's such a novelty, was 10pm + before). With my OH spending more time around Buster, he's got much more confidant with him, Buster picks up on this and will now behaves for him without me needing to be there for back-up :)

Still no sign of another leg-cock. In fact he even squatted down to widdle like a little puppy, instead of standing there like a horse today. Bless him, he's such a weirdo!! :)

> In fact he even squatted down to widdle like a little puppy, instead of standing there like a horse today. Bless him, he's such a weirdo!! :-)

not weird at all, honestly. most of our boys have given the cocking thing a go for a bit then decided its a bit much effort lol. all of ours have squatted though. i think they see the girls do it and think, 'much better idea!'

> most of our boys have given the cocking thing a go for a bit then decided its a bit much effort lol

Buster's not the only one then :) I know he is very lazy and puts the minimum possible effort into anything, it seems that may include not bothering to lift his leg!