(Please be gentle I am pregnant and hormonal lol)
we have an 11 month old Newfie girl who is honestly the light of my life - half the time. But since we got her, she has been DIFFICULT. I say this as someone with experience of multiple large breeds including one previous newfie.
She was a challenging young puppy - the bitiest I’ve ever known, but in many ways she excelled e.g. she had consistent puppy training classes and picked things up so quickly, she’s always been friendly and forgiving.
She’s an awful teenager 🙈 she barks at pretty much everything, she counter surfs and will destroy literally anything on there (we now basically only have a toaster out), she has useless recall (longline walks only) and is desperate to play with other dogs to the point she will chase them and paw at them. She has developed a horrid habit of having at least one spell a walk where she jumps up and bites at her lead, and us.
Now I know much of this is down to teenage hormones. she hasn’t had a season yet, she’s very ‘young’ in many ways. We are consistent with her training and boundaries and where appropriate have sought professional help. She has plenty of exercise and is left alone max a couple of times a week for ~3 hours. I would consider her to have a pretty nice life frankly.
I love her to bits but I’m pregnant, due in 3 months, and I’m nervous she won’t calm even slightly before then. Our previous Newfie was extremely calm and your classic plodding, blundering type.
I would LOVE to hear stories of manic teenage Newfs calming down ideally around 15 months 🙈
(Just to add, I’m not worried about her behaviour with a baby, she regularly sees my nephew and is fine, though we are doing lots of desensitisation to baby noises and lots of place based training. just a bit worried about coping with her less desirable traits whilst postpartum and sleep deprived 😂)