The old saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" is not entirely true. Many people tend to believe this stereotype. You CAN teach a an old dog, however, that older dog has to be broken of the habits it has grown to understand to be okay. (ex. if you were to get a dog at 7 weeks and train it not to jump on the couch it will learn fairly quickly. Now, if you recieved a, say, a 5 yr. old lab from another person who has let that dog sleep on the couch and then all of a sudden you want it to stay off the couch it will be a lot harder to train to stay off. Make sense?)