Help... Leo has found his voice!

[queryne]

I need some help here guys. Leo is 4 months old, he has been pretty quiet up until now but about 4 days ago he started to get VERY vocal.. Whereas before then he was more or less pretty quiet. Now out of the blue he's starting to bark for attention. This will usually happen if one of us is in the same room with him and is not paying attention to him or we walk out of the room. We try to ignore it but it gets so bad at times we have to move him to another room. We live in an apartment building and we're trying to avoid getting complaints from the other tenants. He also seems very fearful of people all of a sudden. When we have people over he'll shy away from them running between our legs (myself or my partner). He used to be pretty friendly and wasn't very afraid to meet new people. Are these things a phase? We have been giving separation time since he got him at 8 weeks. So i'm not sure why he seems to need so much more attention now. Please tell me this is a phase! Is it a good idea to remove him when he starts barking? We will usually resort to this when he won't stop barking for attention. Help! Has this happened to any of you? What did you do? I hope the ignoring starts to work in our favor!

[Suzi]

I think it is a normal phase Maddie was better than Zoey but both did the same thing. I think they call it adolescents. The fear thing needs to be addressed by more socializing. Mine will still bark for attention Maddies bark really hurts my ears because it is very high pitched. She will bark at me to play with the ball I don't make a big deal out of it because its like saying mom please play. I have worked more on the other barking the bark at strangers. I pick her up and say your okay and try to have the person put their hand out so they can sniff. If the bark gets aggressive I give a bit of a bop on the nose or head. Its just to get her attention and say no if she keeps it up. I distract and when it stops say good girl. Mine are two and are still barking and fearful so I probably have done something wrong.

[Buzzys Mom]

I think it's a phase too. Oscar went through 2 weeks of barking and vocal just before 6, and then he just stopped. He still play barks with Buzzy sometimes and if someone comes to the door.

[queryne]

Thanks for chiming in guys. I considered it being adolescence but i assumed he was too young for that.. I thought adolescence happened more at around 6 months. I definitely have to step it up on the socialization. He's going to have his first walk on Saturday so we'll finally be able to get him out and about a little more. Thanks for the reassurance about it being a phase.. Yesterday was tough, today he seems slightly calmer..

[Ewokpup]

There are fear imprint periods. I can't remember exactly when they occur, though.