I have seen many dog owners with fearful, reactive , and aggressive dogs have a hard time with this concept I am about to share. This is the key to leadership with your dog. Many take their fur ball to obedience class at petsmart or petco only to realize that obedience didn't solve their problem. The dog and owner learned a lot but not how to solve their problem. This is solely because they were focusing on the wrong issues. I am a big proponent for building a relationship with your dog so that they love and respect you and want to be with you. Let me be specific with my example to make this clear. Don't let your dog affect your emotional state!!! This is the key I am talking about.I met someone with a skittish dog who always hid under the couch and when the owner grabbed the dog, the dog bit him. This should not be happening with your own dog. As I sat back and observed, the owner left the dog and refuse to take the dog out because he felt like he was hurting the dog and making the dog uncomfortable. This is also why sometimes a trainer is needed to truly evaluate the little details in the dog's behavior and to let the owner know he is not physically hurting the dog. In this case the dog just didn't want to do what was being asked and they were so used to not listening. A leader has compassion and understands what needs to be done to lead their dog to a calm state of mind because they have a calm state of mind. Instead of letting the dog's erratic state of mind affect them, they choose to affect the dog using their calm state of mind
You CAN teach an old dog NEW tricks
Many people do not want to adopt a dog from the shelter because they fear that the dog automatically learned bad behaviors and that it will be easier with a puppy. I am here to say that this is simply not true and that a puppy actually requires more work. Unless you want the dog for something else besides just a pet then I might say get a puppy to quickly prevent bad behaviors. I still might suggest adopting a dog even then. Although it is much easier to prevent bad behaviors then to correct habitual bad behaviors, a lot of pet owners end up unknowingly creating bad behaviors in a puppy anyway. I want dogs in the shelter to be helped because I've seen dogs with so much potential.