Social maturity

I've been reading quite a bit over the last few days about "social maturity" as opposed to "Sexual Maturity" in dogs.

It's something I've always known about and always had a query / concern in the back of my mind with us having issues with the girls when they were younger - I've always been aware of how many people seem to have issues at the age of 24 - 36 months - Neutered or not.

There's loads of different points of view and some harp on about dominance issues and neutering but what I'm really interested in is the maturity of the character of the dog rather than the physical maturity or hormonal changes.

With our girls now both 24 months plus I'm seeing really significant positive changes in their behaviour with each other as they mature.

Be interested to hear anyone elses thoughts opinions on this...do you think there is too much importance on hormones and we don't look at the character or personality issues enough?

Very interesting points rasied Liz - I also often ponder over many things like this too xx

I do think as humans we tend to think of our dogs as human rather than an animal - I also think instinct - preditor (as in their natural wild instinct) and hormones etc do play a large part in dogs lives - and its very interesting to sit back and watch and learn form the animal in front of us. I also believe that human interaction of how we raise and treat our pets also plays a part in their behaviour as a pack or family member x

appreciate your thoughts Suzie ...Human interaction I agree very important - we force them to live how and where we want them to live and then expect them to live as we do.

hormones produce strong emotions /moods and can lead by the nose
but yes i believe in social maturity ive seen and recognise it
to me its a settling down and becoming comfortable with them selves
confident if you like
i think people do it as well but at various times in there lives usually when there 20 + ish
mind you some human males never attain it 100%..... make that very few do

the human male maturity level..there's a discussion that we could have ...forever and a day

wasnt sure maturity happened to men

On a more seriousnote - cracking question hun x