We got our lab at 11 mos. from the pound. Former owners kept him crated all day while at work. He had no socialization skills, you could not even walk him on a leash. One day I rounded the corner and all 85 lbs. of him was on the kitchen table eating off our plates! Signed him up for obedience school, the trainer kept yelling at us that he was distracting the other dogs! Finally I got fed up and we stopped going. I just used common sense and stuff I had read on the internet. For instance I really established with him that I'm the alpha dog, if he bit me in play I would get him still on the ground. He used to fight me and try to get away but now he is submissive. He is three now and has calmed down a lot. He is not perfect, he still has things we can't break him of. He still steals stuff and runs away with it, but if I yell he will immediately drop it. If he sees all of us going out and we dont' call him in the house first, he won't come to us. We have an invisible fence so we can leave him outside. Usually we will tell the next door neighbor to come over and let him in if weather looks bad or he looks tired, then he will go. I say that he has trained us most of the time. But we love him and wouldn't trade him for the world! He stills listens to me the best, the kids can't really control him at all and he listens to DH about 50% of the time. I think school works best when they are puppies. Sammie was kind of set in his ways by the time we got him. We learned fast to keep anything of value out of his reach.
It really helped with my dog's nervous "jumpy" problem, and she learned all the commands except "come when called". 
