04/21/2026
Is your confident pup, who usually strides past anything, suddenly freezing at the sight of the recycling bin, or refusing to walk past a fire hydrant they’ve ignored a hundred times before?
The puppy who once greeted the world with optimism now tucks their tail and hesitates!
You’ve been steady with training from the start, and you know how much progress they’ve made — but in that moment it can feel as if all that work has slipped away. You can’t help but wonder: What changed? Did I do something wrong?
You didn’t.
Some of these shifts can seem confusing—but they’re actually a normal part of development called fear stages—or fear periods.
AND fear stages are just your dog’s nervous system doing its best to adapt to a rapidly changing world!
To learn more on how this might impact your training journey, just use the link in our bio to get all the details!
