By many peoples standards my dogs are marginally trained. I got the American Foxhound at age 11 after she retired. She sorta walks on a leash, doesn’t jump on people and her only command it “kennel up” to get her in the car. She does not sit, stay, heel, wait etc… She doesn’t counter surf but food on a coffee table would be gone in a second. Also not truly 100% housebroken. She never really learned to hold it for any length of time and if it is raining out she doesn’t feel the need to use the dog door and go get wet. I think living in a kennel for 11 years makes it harder to train to be housebroken. She has gotten much better over time.
The Eskimo dog will walk on a leash, sit, down. Sometimes will jump on DH and I. Is wary of strangers so doesn’t jump on them. He pulls a little on the leash but is only 28 pounds so I am not too worried about it. Does not have much of a recall so could never go off leash. I got him at 1.5 years old. He is not the most housebroken thing no matter how much we worked with him. My guess it that is why he was at the shelter. We took him to a dog training class when we first got him.
Lab we got as a puppy. He did puppy training and a Level 1 dog training class. He has to use a harness to walk and will still pull some. He will sit, down and stay for a brief time. He gets really excited when new people come. He will jump on them unless they tell him no. It needs to come from them or he just keeps annoying them. He counter surfs. If he can reach it then it is his. He does not chew inappropriate things such as furniture, shoes, socks etc… He has no recall when out of a fenced area. Although “Come Get a Biscuit” works pretty well. Cooper has zero social skills with other dogs. He wants to jump right in and play and really does not get the whole social niceties that most dogs want to do before they play. The only accidents he has had in the house is when he was sick and had diarrhea and he was so upset about it.
We have a nice fenced yard. We rarely take them on walks. We don’t have people over much and when we do the lab gets locked in a bedroom unless the guests are dog people. When my mom visits for a few days she reminds him that he isn’t allowed to jump on her or sit on her lap and then things are good for the rest of her stay. They generally fit our lifestyle and we don’t inflict them on many people. They all walk well enough to go to the vet, got to PetSmart for claw grinding/clipping and if we want we can take them to the park for an outing.
I am sure we could have gotten the lab and the Eskie better trained but DH and I both have limited time. We trained them to the level we are happy with.
