One more note on the park and then we have to leave (to the park lol).

It's a really good setup though it might not sound like it. I live in the big city, it's very crowded here, lots of building so lots of people to an area.

The hours I go there is the only time almost no one is there. I get to have the entire park to myself. Sometimes there are a few dogs there but I stay on the other side of the park by myself and by 11:30 all dogs are gone.

That's why I'm so attached to it, I can't think of another place where there won't be any people around, I hate crowds.

The hiking park that's attached to this one is scary. Even if there wasn't always a rapist on the loose (we have a really nice guy out there now, he has a taser and raped and robbed a 69 year old woman) I'm just extremely uncomfortable there.

Is never go there in the dark, it's a forest, and in day time it's much more crowded than my park at night. I've been there with my friend a few times. Condoms, needles, people coming out of ditches in the bushes....

And that's not considering I'm scared of spiders, snakes, any wildlife, anything. I'd be so stressed the entire time there that this wouldn't do any good to our walks.

And again, it's way more crowded and has many more dogs.

No way to say this nicely.
Being "attached" to a dog park will undermine everything you're trying to do.
It can't possibly be a "very good setup" when things happen as you described. The best setup in the world is only as good as the dogs and owners that go there.

It's not a dog park. I agree about dog parks and wouldn't go there.

To call this park a dog park because dogs are allowed there is the same as calling the streets dog parks.

It's a park. Dogs pass by us sometimes, maybe one in a half hour at the busiest.

ETA I've been here for almost 2 hours and saw 1 dog. And 5 people passed by.

A park where dogs are allowed off leash, right?

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

They are off leash, right?

A park where dogs are off leash?

In the hours I'm here yes

That is an off-leash dog park (de facto).

Well then any hiking trail is a dog park, at least around here.

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Natalie, I havent posted on the training issues because there are others who are much more capable than I,
I would make a suggestion that you pick one or two training goals a week and work on those exclusively and re-evaluate at the end of the week. From reading your posts it seems like you've have gotten so much info that you want to fix everything now, you can't. There is no magic training method that your dog will instantly understand, its all hard work, consistency, patience, and endless repetition. Teach the basics first, then move on to the more abstract stuff. This is jmho.

 Quote: Natalie Rynda

That goes for his whining and barking. Sometimes when I lock him up and leave him I stand downstairs and listen and I can hear him loud from the 3rd floor.

Sometimes it takes him 45 mins to stop screaming. Neighbors DO hear, they told me about it.

I know that I should come and go for a few secs at a time and I'm doing it but in the meanwhile I have to go to work and leave him for 11 hours.

In any case, crating is a life saver. Before crating I made my daughter stay home with him because we couldn't leave him alone (he dug hardwood floor).
Sometimes she'd leave and we'd fight.

I've stayed out of this thread because you are getting great advice from others who are better-qualified than I, but the issue I have quoted above is still really bothering me. No one has addressed it, and I wonder if it got lost in the shuffle. Are you saying the dog is left in your apartment, in a crate, for 11 hours straight, while you are at work? And then I'm assuming he's crated again when you are home, sleeping. That's an awful lot of time for a young dog (any dog!) to be crated. You mentioned a daughter, 18 years old, I think. I'm not clear on whether she lives with you or not. Can she (or anybody else) get the dog out of the crate a time or two while you're at work so he's not spending 11 hours straight in there? That kind of confinement cannot be helping his state of mind.

(Maybe I misunderstood......)