My dobe is 19 months, and I have posted "plenty" of times before.  I need a bit of help with him.  I know they are velcro dogs (which he definitely is).  The thing is he drives me mad.  I go to work in the morning and he is at home with my sons and husband.  I arrive home about 9.45am and from the minute I get in he doesn't stop whining and following me around (or even after a while he will bark at me), to let me know "come on are we going out".  He just gets under my feet, everywhere I go in the house he is there.  I try not to make his first walk at the same time, sometimes I may go when I get in, then sometimes I want to do a bit of housework and have a chat with my other half.  He just follows me everywhere, and he looks miserable until we go.  The other thing is with his water bowl, if he has previously had a drink from it, he likes then to have fresh water again, he will tip the bowl over and shove it around the kitchen, if I don't replenish it after a while he will come to wherever I am and bark at me.  I am sure he is human!!!

He also is very funny, as I go out to work in the morning he goes upstairs and gets on the bed with my husband!!!

By varying the time of the walk, you are eventually rewarding him, so he's getting a reward for barking and following you around, ........  I think you need to break the chain by either a) teaching him an 'on your bed and quit following me around' command or b) simply NOT walk him for a few days - but may be play a game that will stretch his mind such as some tracking practise, or similar.

I thought that by not walking him at a regular time that would make him better.  Also what is tracking? 

The other day my husband took him out before I came home from work, but he still never left me alone until we went out in the afternoon. 

I sometimes even go upstairs and shut the bedroom door to get a break from him.

Also if I have a visitor and we sit at the kitchen table having a cup of tea, he will take my tea towels into the garden or keep trying to get on my lap.  If none of this gets attention he will then cry at me, or bark.  He does this loud whining noise.

He also comes running in after he has eaten and tries to lick me, also if he has been to toilet in the garden he will also come running in all excited.  I just wonder what all these things mean.

He is just so different from my other dobermann.  I would say he gets more attention than my other one did (being that there was only myself and husband with my previous dobe, but now there are four of us).

By having a reward given to him eventually, he is learning that if he keeps up the whining he does get a reward - he will keep it up until he discovers that whining does NOT bring the reward.  If you can train him to do something you *DO* want him to do, he'll find it a lot easier to drop the habit.

Tracking is simpy following a scent - it's not really my subject though, I tend to cover mainly pet dog training and behaviour issues.  Maybe one of the working trials peps can help - Lyndsay!??

His beahviour does sound rather demanding - a bit like that of a 'spoilt' child whose never learnt that sometimes Mum or Dad just can't drop everything to attend to them, and maybe that's what he needs to learn?  Consistency is the key ;)