Okay, quick run-down. My brother and I live next door to each other, and decided to share responsibility for a dog. I work from home and while he works in town it's not a 40 hour week, so we hope to be able to give the dog a lot of attention. I've never had a dog; he had one 40+ years ago for a short time.
We got a wolf hybrid. It has some Akita and Malamute, but it's >90% Alaskan wolf. Beautiful creature, very friendly. We got him at seven weeks, and he's now fifteen weeks...it's amazing how fast he grows. We have to keep reminding ourselves of how young he is still.
Since neither of us had a lot of experience, we read/viewed Cesar Milan's material.
From 7-10 weeks we walked him, but at about 10 weeks it became obvious that he had more energy than we did, and it was only going to get worse, so we started riding bicycles with him. Almost immediately he was able to do four miles a day without trouble, at a reasonable bicycle clip. Now, five weeks later, he's not far from being able to challenge us for speed, if not for endurance (on a bike). I expect that when his legs are twice as long, he'll be able to outrun us easily, at least for short periods. We're training him to always run beside and to the right of us, so that we're on the road, he's on the side.
We've been training him on sit-stay-come. We got the impression that he was very intelligent, since he picked that up very quickly.
So, our question: the last few days he suddenly grew rebellious. We HAD gotten to the point where we were letting him off the leash for the entire run, and he'd keep up and run close beside us. Now, suddenly, he stops, drags on the leash for long periods, or runs away from us sometimes when he's off the leash. During sit-stay-come training, half the time he acts like he's no longer interested - despite the cheese that he liked before.
Is this normal behavior? Are we just wildly optimistic about how fast a young dog can take this all in? Do dogs go through phases like teenagers? Should we just settle down and keep on with him, or are we doing something obviously wrong?
Thanks!
We got a wolf hybrid. It has some Akita and Malamute, but it's >90% Alaskan wolf. Beautiful creature, very friendly. We got him at seven weeks, and he's now fifteen weeks...it's amazing how fast he grows. We have to keep reminding ourselves of how young he is still.
Since neither of us had a lot of experience, we read/viewed Cesar Milan's material.
From 7-10 weeks we walked him, but at about 10 weeks it became obvious that he had more energy than we did, and it was only going to get worse, so we started riding bicycles with him. Almost immediately he was able to do four miles a day without trouble, at a reasonable bicycle clip. Now, five weeks later, he's not far from being able to challenge us for speed, if not for endurance (on a bike). I expect that when his legs are twice as long, he'll be able to outrun us easily, at least for short periods. We're training him to always run beside and to the right of us, so that we're on the road, he's on the side.
We've been training him on sit-stay-come. We got the impression that he was very intelligent, since he picked that up very quickly.
So, our question: the last few days he suddenly grew rebellious. We HAD gotten to the point where we were letting him off the leash for the entire run, and he'd keep up and run close beside us. Now, suddenly, he stops, drags on the leash for long periods, or runs away from us sometimes when he's off the leash. During sit-stay-come training, half the time he acts like he's no longer interested - despite the cheese that he liked before.
Is this normal behavior? Are we just wildly optimistic about how fast a young dog can take this all in? Do dogs go through phases like teenagers? Should we just settle down and keep on with him, or are we doing something obviously wrong?
Thanks!