After much thought about getting a dog, we rehomed a 9 month old crossbreed (dalmatian x supposedly GSD, but rescue shelter were not sure about the GSD bit) a few weeks ago. He had belonged to a couple who worked and didn't have time for him. He's had no socialisation with dogs and is quite shy of people initially, although he warms up if they are gentle. He was supposedly housetrained and neutered- both of these have proved to NOT be the case!
I had not ideally wanted such a young dog, but he was so good with the DSs (aged 4.5 and 2) and we had come across so few rescue dogs that were, that we decided to take him. He continues to be very gentle and friendly with the boys and visiting children (obviously everyone is supervised at all times!) Visiting adults and particularly men frighten him a bit but once he's had a few treats from them he is happy.
He lacks any kind of basic training (recall non existent, pulls like a train, only knew 'sit') and continually gets on the furniture and is a terrible food thief- we're talking food off your plate if you turn away for a minute, raw beetroot from the counter top in plain view, etc! He will just remove food (always very gently) from the toddler's hand too, even at the table. Although these are tiring and hard work, I feel we can make progress with these issues. He started socialisation/training classes last night and wasn't too bad.
But the toileting is driving me crazy. He is taken out regularly and given tons of praise/treat when he goes in the garden but so far gives no clues as to when he needs to go, and will merrily go in the house, sometimes going off out of sight, sometimes in full view. He is happy enough when left at home alone (2 hours the longest so far, which I worked up to gradually) but if someone in the family goes upstairs he sometimes (not always!) freaks out, whining and crying. If we are all upstairs he gets very upset and wees/poos, even if just having gone outside. I don't really know how to tackle it and in conjunction with all the other stuff, (not to mention normal family life) has left me feeling so stressed and that I have bitten off way more than I can chew 
If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.
The doghouse
Rescue dog ishoos
coldcomfortHeart · 21/05/2013 10:45
Lots of people will be here with useful advice i am sure.
Very irresponsible of rescue centre to tell you the dog was neutered if he wasn't, however, wouldn't that have been quite obvious? I am surprised they rehomed an entire dog, i always thought rescues neutered.
I laughed about the food thing, reminded of my rescue dog, i had a sandwich on my plate and the bugger just took it before i had chance to stop him :) Then there was the time he stole an entire joint of beef!! 
He had serious food aggression issues too so once he had something, it was his! It all worked out, with time!
One thing you could try to help wiht the anxiety is a DAP diffuser/collar, they aren't the cheapest thing in the world but i would wholeheartedly recommend it. We had this for our rescue dog, he had some issues (which we knew about) and he was basically climbing the walls, the DAP really helped. Its a pheremone that is released by whelping bitches and helps with anxiety issues.
I suspect the soiling is an anxiety thing too so sorting that out could put a stop to that as well. I think you just have to be prepared for it to take time. I thnk it took us about six months to get our old dog on track.
I hve anotehr rescue dog now, he is so funny, but does have his quirks and has destroyed my bed, glasses, phone charger - he soon trained us to make sure stuff is out of his reach, bedroom door locked etc. He doesn't realy do it so much now. Same with the soiling, after about two weeks he started going in the house (only poo!) I actually just ignored it and he stopped. I think that was luck more than anything else - one piece of advice i was told was to put the poo in the garden - let the dog see you do it, leave it there for a while then the dog learns that poo is for the garden and also the smell will be there (nice!).
GSDxDalmation - well, he will certainly be a character - Dalmations are mad as hatters and GSDs can tend towards nerviness.
It's sounds like you've got a great dog, and you certainly Lund like a great owner......
In a rush now, so can't help too much, but reading your post reminded me of when we had an older rescue dog. He had been trained in foster, but this wasn't followed up in his first home and he would just go wherever he stood when he first arrived.
We took him outside every 15 minutes in the first few days - not because we felt he needed to go that often, but because there wasn't much of a warning if he was going to go indoors and we wanted him to make positive associations with going outside and zero connection with going inside, kyswim. We would take him out, making ourselves very boring (ie no play or anything) until after he'd gone, then heaps of praise and treats, plus a game.
We gradually increased the time gap by 5 minutes at a time and that way were able to work out how long he could hold it for between visits. Getting him up to half an hour was really quick and from then he quickly progressed to an hour and longer. He was accident free in the house within 48 hours, despite the previous owners insisting he couldn't be housetrained. 
The advantage was that he never had the chance to get it wrong and go indoors, so he learned really quickly that going outside was rewarding and therefore what we wanted him to do.
I would second trying an Adaptil DAP Diffuser or collar for the anxiety. The soiling when you are upstairs or outside without him does sound like separation anxiety, but it's early days and he still has to learn to feel secure and believe you will always come back.
Stealing food while people are eating is one of those things that will require containment until you've taught him not to do it. So, everyone eats at the table every time, even for snacks and the dog has to stay either in his bed or perhaps behind a dog/child-gate until the meal is over. Similar for food being stolen off worktops and tables, you do get used to automatically putting things up high and never leaving anything near the front edge of a work-top and if he doesn't get the opportunity, you can teach him not to steal, by rewarding him for the behaviour you do want, as D0oin suggested.
With most things, it's preferable to orchestrate things to try and avoid the unwanted behaviour/s occurring as far as possible and then reward the desired behaviour, but if he does manage to circumvent your strategies, ignore it, rather than reprimand or punish.
It's very early days yet and it is intense when you first take on a rescue, but the rewards you reap for sticking with it and putting in the time/effort are massive.
Some good iadvice here, I expect a lot of this will calm down once he begins to relax and realise this is his home.
Please look up crate training ( it always seems to be my response on here! But it's great) I think this will help with the anxiety and toileting issues.
I don't allow our rescue upstairs and she has got used to it. It's nice to have some dog free areas so kids can play in peace / I can sit on something hair free 
Good luck.
Ps. Kikopup on you tube has some brilliant videos for clicker training.
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