Yes. I firmly believe every dog can be trained.

Now, what a dog can be trained to do—and how far you can take that training—will vary considerably from dog to dog. Age, breed, temperament, personality, genetics, previous experiences, environment, and the relationship with the owner all play a role.

But I don’t believe that getting an older dog, a difficult breed, or a dog with behavioral problems means you’ve missed your opportunity.

I’ve personally trained more than 20,000 dogs, and that gives me a much broader reference point than simply looking at the dogs I happen to see in a typical training environment. I’ve worked with dogs of virtually every breed, age, temperament, and personality, including dogs that their owners had essentially given up on.

And I’ve learned something important:

It’s rarely too late to teach a dog a better way to live.

Age Isn’t the Barrier People Think It Is

Younger dogs are generally easier to shape because they haven’t had as much time to develop established habits.

A puppy is still figuring out how the world works. You have an opportunity to establish communication, boundaries, routines, and expectations before the dog develops a long list of behaviors that you later have to undo.

That’s why I encourage people to start training early.

But early is not the same as only.

I’ve trained plenty of older dogs—five, six, seven years old and beyond. I’ve even trained dogs well into their senior years.

One of the most memorable examples I’ve had recently was an 11-year-old Poodle mix who had essentially become the terror of his house and neighborhood.

He was reactive, extremely vocal, difficult to manage, and aggressive toward people and other dogs. His owners were frustrated and had reached the point where they weren’t really enjoying their dog anymore.

But when I evaluated him, I didn’t see a dog that couldn’t be trained.

I saw a dog that had never really been given a clear operating system.

He hadn’t had meaningful obedience training. He didn’t have much structure. He didn’t understand what his owners expected from him, and in many situations, he had learned that it was his job to make the decisions.

So we started with the basics.

Communication.

Structure.

Leadership.

Consistency.

And time.

The change was remarkable.

With consistent handling and the right approach, he became dramatically more manageable. His owners could actually enjoy having him around again. And one of the interesting things about this dog was that he seemed to thrive once he no longer felt responsible for calling the shots.

That’s something I’ve seen repeatedly throughout my career.

Dogs Actually Like Knowing What to Do

People sometimes worry that establishing leadership or structure is somehow taking away a dog’s freedom.

I see it differently.

Imagine being in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language and nobody tells you what’s expected. You’d probably be pretty stressed.

Dogs can experience something similar when they don’t understand the rules of their environment.

A dog doesn’t necessarily want to be responsible for deciding who comes through the door, how to respond to another dog, whether someone is a threat, or what it should do when something exciting happens.

Leadership gives the dog clarity.

When the owner establishes clear expectations and the dog learns how to respond, the dog doesn’t have to constantly make those decisions for itself.

That’s one reason obedience is so important.

Obedience Is the Foundation

I consider obedience training the foundation for communication with virtually every dog.

It isn’t about turning a dog into a robot.

It’s about establishing a common language.

When your dog understands sit, down, stay, come, place, off, leave it, and other useful behaviors, you have tools that allow you to communicate with the dog in everyday situations.

Those tools become even more valuable when you’re dealing with behavioral issues.

A reactive dog that doesn’t have a reliable relationship with its owner is much more difficult to redirect.

A dog that has learned to respond to its owner has another option.

That’s where the foundation becomes extremely important.

Breed Matters—but It Doesn’t Define the Dog

I’ve worked with virtually every type of dog, and one thing I’ve learned is that breed gives you information, but it doesn’t tell you everything about the individual dog.

Different breeds have different tendencies, drives, energy levels, sensitivities, and purposes for which they were developed.

But within every breed, you still have individual personalities.

I’ve seen incredibly soft, sensitive dogs from breeds people assume are tough.

I’ve seen extremely confident dogs from breeds people assume are easygoing.

I’ve seen high-drive dogs that needed tremendous structure and lower-drive dogs that needed a completely different approach.

So I don’t train the breed.

I train the dog in front of me.

Previous Experience Matters

A dog’s history can also make training more challenging.

A dog that has spent seven years practicing unwanted behavior has had seven years of reinforcement for that behavior. You can’t necessarily erase that history overnight.

But you can begin creating a new history.

That’s where repetition becomes so important.

Dogs are creatures of habit. The more they practice a behavior, the more familiar it becomes.

If we’ve spent years allowing a dog to pull on the leash, bark at every person who walks by, jump on guests, or ignore its owner, those behaviors can become deeply established.

Our job is to introduce a better pattern and then practice that pattern until it becomes the dog’s new normal.

Some Dogs Simply Need a Different Approach

This is where experience really matters.

I’ve learned not to walk into a training session assuming I already know exactly how I’m going to train the dog.

I need to see the dog.

What motivates it?

What does it respond to?

What makes it nervous?

What makes it excited?

How does it respond to pressure?

How does it respond to praise?

Does it like food? A ball? A toy? Physical or verbal praise?

How quickly does it learn?

How much repetition does it need?

The answers to those questions help determine the approach.

What works beautifully for one dog may not work at all for another.

That’s why I believe experience matters. After training more than 20,000 dogs, I’ve had the opportunity to encounter an enormous range of challenges. I’ve seen dogs that responded immediately and dogs that required tremendous patience. I’ve worked with fearful dogs, aggressive dogs, highly energetic dogs, stubborn dogs, anxious dogs, older dogs, puppies, and dogs with years of established habits.

Every one of them teaches you something.

So, Can Every Dog Be Trained?

Yes.

But I would qualify that answer by saying every dog can be taught and improved, but the outcome won’t look exactly the same for every dog.

A young, healthy, highly motivated dog with no significant behavioral history may progress very quickly.

An older dog with years of ingrained behavior, fear, anxiety, or aggression may require considerably more time and management.

And some dogs may always require certain precautions or limitations.

That’s okay.

Success isn’t necessarily turning every dog into the same dog.

Success is helping each dog become the best, most manageable version of itself.

That’s what we’re trying to accomplish at Smart Dogs.

We want to establish communication, build trust, create motivation, provide structure, and teach the dog how to succeed in the world it lives in.

And sometimes the biggest transformation isn’t simply that the dog learns to sit, stay, or come.

It’s that the owner looks at the dog and says:

“I finally understand my dog—and my dog finally understands me.”

That’s when training really starts to change the relationship.

A trained dog is a happy dog.