Hi-
We have not done obedience training with him mostly for lack of time. All of this has happened so quickly (including our adoption of him) that we haven't had a moment to plan.
I will say that when we first got him, he seemed to be really pretty well behaved, and responded well to "sit", "down", and "back". My daughter is even able to hold the leash to walk him. She is also 7 years old, and he is far more powerful than she, but he behaves fairly well. I take over the leash as need be if there is another dog around, or cars are passing, etc. My daugther has pretty much gotten him to quit stopping frequently too, as she just keeps on walking when he stops, and he eventually comes along. We have not tried to do anything to train out the howling, but I would say we haven't a clue how to do that anyway. Owing to the fact that he was responsive to commands that we gave him, it didn't occur to us that we needed to do training.
I am kind of wondering too if the dog could be agitated right now because my husband is kind of "over it". He returned from a week-long trip and had to repair a fence that was wrecked by our Houdini dog. Maybe he is giving the dog really bad vibes. The dog's recent (really bad) agitation seems to have happened since my husband came home. I could be coincidence, but maybe not. Unfortunately, the agitation exists when my daughter and I approach him too, which makes my daughter in particular not want to deal with him either. If he won't sit for her or calm down when she wants to give him a treat, she will just drop it and leave.
Anyway, this feels a lot like it is spiraling out of control. If indeed the dog is responding emotionally to some bad vibes, then we need to fix the vibes, which won't be very easy, at least not with this husband.
Thanks for your response.
Mary