i need everyone to stop telling me this is normal, my golden retriever turned ten months old and the puppy who passed obedience class with honors has been replaced by a 68 pound sea lion who has forgotten his own name, eaten a couch cushion, started a feud with a garbage can he has walked past every day of his life, and discovered the counter has a steak zone

Murphy graduated puppy class in march as the star pupil. i am not exaggerating, the trainer used him as the demo dog for recall, other owners asked us what we were doing differently, and my husband and i genuinely exchanged a look like, huh, maybe were good at this. i would like to formally apologize to every owner of a teenage dog i silently judged during that era. we were not good at this. we had a baby dog who hadnt gotten his growth spurt of opinions yet.

he turned 10 months three weeks ago and it was like a switch flipped. his recall, the party trick recall, the demo dog recall, is gone. not degraded, GONE, he will look directly at me while i call him, visibly weigh his options, and then trot the other direction with a jaunty little bounce that i swear is sarcastic. sit happens when it aligns with his personal goals. leash manners have regressed to week one, 6:45 this morning i was being towed through the rain toward a squirrel like a man waterskiing behind a boat i own. and the new material, this week alone: one couch cushion opened up like a pinata, $140 replacement, foam everywhere, zero remorse, he brought ME a piece. a sudden blood feud with the neighbors garbage can, an object he has walked past approximately 300 times, now apparently a threat requiring full commentary. 11pm zoomies as a scheduled program. and yesterday he discovered counter surfing by liberating an entire raw steak in the four seconds my husbands back was turned, which the vet assured us is fine and which Murphy clearly logged as the greatest victory of his career.

and yes. i know. its adolescence, its normal, his brain is under construction, it passes. everyone says this, the trainer says it, this forum says it, my mother in law says it with a smugness i do not care for. and i believe all of you, i do. but "its normal" is doing absolutely nothing for me at 6:45am in the rain, or at the counter formerly known as safe, or standing in a snowdrift of couch foam. i love this dog with my whole chest and i do not like him very much this month, and i think both of those things are allowed to be true at the same time. golden people, tell me when the frontal lobe actually showed up for yours, i need a date to circle on the calendar, even a fake one