Richard Kaszeta wrote:

>
>
> Speaking as someone who spent almost 3 years training and fostering
> difficult shelter dogs, this is probably a bigger issue than the
> breed. Dogs can learn a lot of bad habits in 9 months...

Shelters are full of problem dogs. Many of them runners or the previous
owners got rid of them. I picked up a beautiful looking dog at the pound 6
years ago. He is a Shepherd / Bouvier cross, and absolutely clueless. He was
not house trained when I got him at age 1 1/2. I suspect that he had been
tied up and ignored all the time. He was a challenge.

After we had him for a year we adopted a 5 year old Groenendahl. He belonged
to a family where the man operated a business from home and had to care for a
2 year old and a new-born because his wife had been hospitalized with mental
problems. He had been acting up at home because the owner had no time to take
him out for the exercise he so badly needed. He has been a wonderful dog. He
was also a great role model for the pound mutt. There was a 100% improvement
in the mutt within a week of this guy's arrival.

Here we are 5 years later with two calm, well behaved dogs. Well, one very
well behaved dog and one idiot who is more controllable than he used to be.