Inga Gibson, a recent graduate of the University of Hawai'i who works at the Hawaiian Humane Society, said that another advantage of adopting older dogs is that they are less destructive than puppies. They have already gone through the teething process, which means they probably won't go chewing up everything in sight. If the dog does have a tendency to chew up things, the cause can most likely be linked to bad habits the dog picked up while with its previous owner. In most cases, the previous owner did not enforce discipline strictly enough in certain areas. The old saying about not being able to teach old dogs new tricks is false.
Older dogs are just as capable of learning as younger dogs.
In fact, some people believe that older dogs can focus better, because they're more mellow. Older dogs have unfairly been stereotyped as hard learners, which influences people to believe that they are stubborn and unchangeable. Many people who have adopted older dogs have nothing but positive things to say about their experiences. Brian Liu, a business major at UH, adopted two older dogs from the Humane Society. He said that the dogs were already well trained when he got them, and that he had no problems correcting their bad habits and teaching them new tricks.