Hello can someone tell me at what age does adolescence start in a gsd and what age does it end ,As my girl is very nice and has not gone through the bratty stage that alot of people say that their pets go through.As i am wandering if she will go through it or will i be lucky ? she has had her first season at 8 months thanks nic

A lot of it does depend on the character of your dog, but your GSD will be entering 'The Kevin stage from the age yours is now, dogs are still 'puppies' up to the age of 2. Personally I have always found young females to mature a lot quicker than males and good breeding really does make a difference to the temperament of your GSD, I was lucky and neither of my two were hard work and seemed to just breeze through puppyhood and adolescence very calmly and well behaved, I see an awful lot of GSD's with owners who can not handle them and they are hyper and dragging their owners along, trying to get at another dog or owner   If you girl is calm and well behaved now, you may also be totally unaffected, you can put it down to good breeding and a well trained and calm owner. :-D

We didnt have a "kevin" stage really, he has just slowly improved, the only thing i noticed was when he got to about one he got a bit overpowering with other dogs, but with humans no attitude change at all.

My GSD is almost 9 months and I was waiting for the Kevin stage, but dont think it will happen, He is a very clever calm boy....nothing seems to have changed...YET....fingers crossed. definitely agree that the correct training is a big factor.

Sounds to me like you,re doing really well not all dogs are hooligans My first GSD was an absolute angel from the word go
Sometimes different breeding lines have stronger personalities than others my current youngster has lots of attitude but is brilliant with people and always has been but as she likes to make herself heard it does not always appear this way to people who are unfamiliar with the breed.
Maybe you are just going to have a good girl from the start like I had, count your blessings and enjoy your girl remember dogs can,t read training books so they don,t know if they are meant to be a hooligan and If I was you I wouldn,t bother to tell her this.
Good luck with your girl and enjoy training her.
Sharon

Of the last four dogs I've had, two had "Kevinhood" to some degree and two showed absolutely no signs of it and grew into mature dogs without any challenging behaviour.  Nips is a confident pup who is maturing nicely but has treated me to a couple of teenage "moments" but I'm tending to take these as they come and deal with them as individual issues rather than assume, gloomily, that they herald some truly terrible times. If I'm proved wrong then we'll just have to cope with the adolescent angst as it rears its head...!

Hi any help for me i have been to loads of trainning and social outings and my girl is a real hooligan ,with no manners at all so you should be very pleased. When i see kevin and perry i want to scream at the tv ,so count your blessings xxxxx

bet you love her though

Literally when the clock turned 12 midnight and my girl turned six months she turned into an absolute Prima Donna - a real little madam. Even her trainers started to clal her 'her ladyship' as she was such a little brat. She is steadily improving. The only way we could deal with it is getting her to more training classes and going right back to basics at home with the ground rules. It seemed like she was constantly testing us all the time to see what she could get away with. She also developed selective hearing (if I called her from a few feet away she would look at me and make the conscious decision to ignore me, but when she heard a packet opning from three rooms away she was in like a shot!). She also started to be a bully with other dogs, and started to pull on walks which she had never done before. She has improved since we have just made sure she knows the rules, and started using a halti. We kind of knew she was going to be a strong personality and quite a dominent bitch from observing her in puppy class, but the nice thing is that now she has improved her trainers actually think she has the makings of a teaching dog, so we are hoping to develop this further through her training.
It has been hard, but I would definitely describe it as a 'kevin' phase, and once you learn how to deal with it (she is my first dog) it gets much easier!

Yes we do love her , we took her to club today and told everyone what a naughty girl she is and for 2 hours she was brilliant got home opened the boot of the car seen one of her rivals and went nuts ,unbelevable spoke to her breeder today and her sister is coming in to season so please please let this be the problem ( my husband thinks she has a split personality  like me ) lol

what is "one of her rivals"? a dog she doesnt like?

yes, she is a spaniel with fear agression and everytime we walk passed she jumps at the fence and there is other no way past so now every time we go out she is on her garud as soon as we leave the front door.I did have a word but their dog is small and cute and does not have a problem(not half),and to top it all the other day as i walked passed on my own there was alittle springer pup going past with a lady and our rivals owners were making a fuss and turned to me as i passed your dog would have that for dinner (Ah well i nearly had a turn)and then to top it all off they were trying to pull their dog by the collar to see the pup , their dog was pulling away to get back in the garden how thick are these people (i think i should have a chill pill now that i have got that of my chest)

That is so weird as my shepherd's nemesis is a spaniel at puppy class....

It is like that episode of the Simpsons were Maggy's arch-enemy is the baby with the one eyebrow, well this is my girl with this spaniel...