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I won't argue with you there. Dogs need and desire a role model. You have to meet their expectations and give them both the love and discipline they desire. Dogs love learning and they want something to do, if they don't get that stimulation, it's no better than putting them in a crate and never interacting with them.

I learned to encourage and guide my dogs to jobs that they discover for themselves. I guide them to positive constructive jobs vs. destructive. My dogs don't get crated, they are part of the family and they know it. We took in a dog that was slated to be destroyed because of the stupidity of the owner. He's still learning social behavior but he's not violent only doesn't understand some things. He's now a very protective and loving dog. Because of what happened to him, it took us a while to get him to interact with our other dogs. Now, he's a strong pack member and he's very happy here. Every night, I take him out in the back yard and let him chase the laser around. He loves it and looks forward to it every night.

Here's a few pics of our dogs...

First is Max with our daughter. He's the nicest dog in the world but if he thinks you're going to hurt her, he'll bring the pain in a hard way. He loves my daughter more than anything in the world. You can kinda tell in the pic...

Next is our three dogs together getting a treat...

Sasha, the mutt.

And the rescue dog I mentioned at the top of my post... Ika.

Beautiful dogs.

I’ve never (well, beyond childhood, which doesn’t count and they never worked out) “adopted” an older dog. So I’m not sure how all that would work out. Only pups.

I never understood, since I took over the reins of dogs as a teen (my parents weren’t really “animal” people and they nor my siblings didn’t really get it at all), why so many “nice-nice” people with pets can hardly do anything with their dogs. I took dogs very seriously when I was in high school; after studying a lot for a while we got a “show” GS (LOL). I conditioned and trained her, and between her nature (plain as a puppy) and her up-bringing, she is the most wonderful dog I ever even heard of. No trouble at all. I never understand why people crate up their dogs “when we’re out”, or even at night, or can’t go for walks (well, my current anxious dog IS difficult when she gets anxious about dogs, people, etc), or go for rides. I conditioned my dogs for this. My dogs have the run of the house at all times; I don’t worry about them ruining anything. They’re no trouble. I expect they will be “free”. They need the discipline to understand how to handle freedom.

My next-door neighbors got a Golden last year (sigh). They’re working on an “invisible” fence now, since they have a smallish yard which back butts right up against our front/side. When talking to them the wife mentions how wonderfully calm (LOL, again the anxiety she doesn’t always see) our dog is - no running, no escaping, no barking (per se). This when her still-young dog ran pell-mell to our dog and toddler from their backyard when we opened our garage. She was “grateful” our elder GS wasn’t perturbed by this, etc.