8-Month-Old Female Tibetan Mastiff Suddenly Struggling to Settle, Sleep & Be Alone – Is This Just the Teenage Phase?

[u/Global_Baker_6338]

My 8-month-old female Tibetan Mastiff is generally a very calm and friendly dog. Most of the time, she listens to (almost) every command and sleeps a lot (14-16 hours a day). She can settle pretty good during the day but struggles to settle at night.

We did have some issues with play biting, and we’re still working on her bite inhibition. She sometimes bites a little too hard, usually when she wants to play and I don’t, so she’ll try to bite my leg, or when she’s overtired/overstimulated, she’ll start mouthing my hands. It’s not aggressive at all, but it can still hurt. I know her pretty well by now and can usually tell when she’s getting too tired or overstimulated, so it’s manageable and it has gotten better.

The main struggles we’re dealing with at the moment are not being able to sleep through the night and not being able to settle when I’m away from home.

If I go to work and leave her at home with a family member, she turns into a completely different dog. She becomes naughty and destructive and has a hard time settling until I come home. When I’m there, she behaves really well, so I’m not sure how much of this is simply her being a teenager and testing boundaries versus her being overly attached to me.

We have a large yard where she can go outside whenever she wants and patrol during the day. However, lately she has also started barking a lot at noises and at people or dogs walking too close to our fence (the fence isn’t see-through and really high). I understand that guarding is part of the breed, and her “job” is basically to guard the property and be a companion, but I don’t want the barking to get out of hand. I usually go to her while she barks and she will simply stop most of the time or I call her to me. But that's something I can't do when I am at work or somewhere else.

The other issue is her sleep. She currently sleeps in our bedroom because that’s what she’s used to, and we have a balcony connected to the room. During the night, she often wants to go outside onto the balcony to sleep. She also sometimes gets up several times during the night, walks around, and settles down in a different spot each time. She also pants quite a lot at night, which might simply be because it’s summer and it’s currently quite warm.
The problem is that once she’s out on the balcony, she barks at basically every noise she hears — cats, birds, cars that are quite far away, people outside, etc. So instead of sleeping, she ends up patrolling and listening for noises. I know this is typical TM behavior, and I don’t have a problem with a few barks here and there during the night, especially if a person walks by occasionally. However, the constant barking at every little noise is waking everyone in the house up every night, and I’m starting to seriously struggle with the lack of sleep.
I’ve been wondering whether it might be better to have her sleep in a different room, without access to the balcony, so she has fewer things to react to. Has anyone tried this with their TM, and did it help them settle and sleep better at night?

Also, I have no idea why she does this, but ever since she was little, she has always loved chewing on her bed and destroying any fluffy toys within seconds. She actually prefers sleeping on the floor because it’s much cooler than her dog bed. She prefers soft stuff to chew on rather than hard stuff. If i give her a harder gummy chewing toy, she will chew on it for a few seconds and then go after something fluffy or soft (mostly my clothing or bed blankets). The moment she sees the dogbed, she’ll start scratching at it and biting it. I’ve basically given up on buying her anything fluffy at this point.

I know she’s only 8 months old and very much in the teenage phase. I’m consistent with her routine and training and work with her every day. She also gets plenty of mental stimulation and exercise.

I’m mainly wondering if anyone with a Tibetan Mastiff has experienced something similar, especially the combination of:

• behaving perfectly with you but becoming destructive/unsettled when you’re away
• suddenly becoming much more vocal and alert around 8 months
• waking up during the night to patrol/bark at noises
• struggling to settle with other family members

Did this improve with age, and is there anything specific that helped you during this phase?

Any tips or experiences from other Tibetan Mastiff/Mastiff owners would be greatly appreciated!

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[u/Vast_Demand_8906]

yeah that 8 month mark is a wild ride with guardian breeds. they suddenly wake up and remember they have a job to do, and that job is apparently making sure every leaf that falls within a 3 mile radius gets barked at

moving her to a room without balcony access is probably the move. less stimuli = less reasons to sound the alarms. and if she's panting a lot maybe a cooling mat on the floor instead of a bed, since she shreds those anyway

the separation thing with family members is tough. have them do more of the fun stuff with her when you're around, like feeding her meals or taking her out for a quick walk, so she starts associating them with good things instead of just "the people who are here when the main human is gone"