I need help with my husband and two boys (15 and 19), they need to be trained!  I have a dobermann (nearly 20 months now).  I try to do everything with my dobermann as it should be done, but with my family I am banging my head against a brick wall.  When I come in I am calm with him and ignore him, until I am ready to greet him, they come in and hype him up "hello boy" so consequently he jumps up at them, he gets so excited.  Sometimes it is so annoying as I am trying to do what is right by him but I think he is getting confused messages, it is so difficult keeping everything consistent when they just do as they wish with him.  He does have a few problems and I am sure it is to do with the inconsistency, don't get me wrong he is a lovely dog and we all love him dearly, but it is so hard.  Do other people have these problems? 

I think you'll probably find most replies will say that Yes its the childrens/OH inconsistencies that make training so much harder.
I say don't let the dog on the settee, my kids do as soon as my backs turned.
I say don't let dogs jump up, my kids encourage it.

Yep.  I was saying this on another thread.  Trying to get everyone to be consistent is a nightmare.  I am with my dog all day and she is quiet and calm.  When I want a break from working I do 10 minute training sessions and everything is great.  My family come in and the dog goes berserk and it's like she is conditioned to behave differently with them now and it drives me nuts.  Another example is that my dog is not allowed near the dinner table and she excellent at not begging for or stealing food,  My lot were warned not to feed her from the table or their plates so that this habit was never formed.  I couldn't understand it then that she recently started getting excited when you make toast, hanging around and whining until I caught my teenage daughter taking bites from her toast then giving the crusts to the dog. I was fuming.  Unless training scraps are supposed to go on the kitchin side or in the dog's bowl.

My OH takes her on the longest walks (3 hours yesterday) which is great except he lets her go too far ahead which now means I am having less and less control over her for recall which was very good, not perfect, but pretty good.

It's not just the kids though, my parents join the mayhem as well.  They love the dog so much and my dad lets her do what she wants and thinks that making her sit or wait is cruel.  When I was trying to break the dog of her mouthing my dad would waggle his hand in front of her and say 'she's alright' it doesn't hurt me.  Of course it must of as she was breaking skin and it was flippin well hurting the rest of us.

Oh dear that turned into a little rant.  Must be Monday morning

What is it with "children" and dogs?!! Only I've been counting myself really lucky that my offspring are (supposed to be) grown up now I've got a young pup. The theory being that there is only one potentially hyperactive member of the family unlike days of old when the house seemed to be full of 'em!!  And the theory seemed to be working just fine with intelligent discussions about the benefits of consistency and the need to train pups out of certain habits early. Not ten minutes later, however, I discover my 22 year old son sat on the kitchen floor happily encouraging the pup to chew the bottom of his trousers! D'oh!!!

lol - exactly.  My 15 year old son was lamely trying to tell me that he was trying to retrieve a sock but it looked like a game of tug to me.