Your dog's behavior is a reflection of you

A dog is as good as its owner has taught it.

Family friends of mine have a German Shepherd and as they are an elderly couple they weren't quite so inclined to train their dog when it was young.

After a while of disobedience they decided to take this dog to a dog training school but as would be expected from a dog that has never had any training from a puppy the dog didn't like the training school.

The easy solution was to discontinue the training and hope for the best.
Unfortunately the best will never come from a dog that has not been trained and will not respond to any of their requests.

They were disappointed with their pet and assumed that it was because it had a poor personality.

Little did they know that having spent some time on this dog when it was a puppy would have given them a pet that they would have enjoyed a whole lot more and they would have had an obedient dog that they would have been happy to take anywhere without fear of it running away and causing trouble.

German Shepherds are intelligent dogs and this dog has been quite bored for most of it's life as it hasn't got any purpose in life and will not listen to any commands.

After seeing the dog become somewhat depressed I started to retrain it to improve the life of both the dog and it's owners.

Progress has been very rapid as the dog is happy it has some new challenges and loves the attention and rewards that it gets on a regular basis now.

It is a lot more sociable and is easier to manage when out in public.

The owners are a lot happier and so is the dog.
It just seems a shame that they didn't persevere so much earlier in the dog's life and they all would have enjoyed many more years of fun and entertainment.