Without wishing to divert down a different road I'd be a bit wary of giving a dog any sort of leeway outside of the traditional "pack animal" approach and I'd agree with RGX that the puppy has to know that everyone else in the house takes priority - this is definitely not done by physical punishment but by voice level and intonation - the dog will read and understand every inflection of your voice as they are incredibly perceptive of this and of facial expressions (I'm sure you know this anyway) and also subtle things like the dog being fed after your family eat (with its own food), or you not allowing it to push past you when entering a room, or stopping barking when you tell it to - you've assessed what its perceives to be danger and you are telling it that its ok.

The point needs to be made too that the dog is happy with this, in any pack there is only one leader and the rest will quite happily follow it and many dogs will become anxious if there is not a leader to follow, I'm on my third German Shepherd now and they incredibly loyal and very sociable dogs but they need strong leadership, give them those guidelines and they will never be a problem to your family or to other families, too many of them are bought to bark at strangers and even show aggression, that's just plain wrong and is a fault in the ownership.

My pillow is not her territory. It's MINE!

She's also attempted the eat the SKY remote as well the little witch.

rlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22536727rl

The evidence in the article is backed up by my own extensive research involving my own golden retriever Jake and two brother-in-laws and one close friend who are/were all police dog handlers - longevity in dogs is DEFINITELY connected to idleness

A police dog is normally retired at around seven years of age after years of living out of doors in kennels, being walked around the streets, chasing ne'er-do-wells, being thrown over walls and down embankments after ne'er-do-wells etc etc etc, after retirement, my research has proved, that they don't tend to live beyond their tenth birthdays, being worn out through hard work and all.

Jake was one month beyond his 13th birthday when the cancer claimed him and like the Irish Wolfhound in that BBC article had a lifetime of relaxing behind him, and like the Labrador took his exercise when running away from things that spooked him, like plastic bags or Cable TV street cabinets that hummed, that sort of thing.

Its a regime that I am also proud to follow - all of my friends of the same age as me now have fooked up knees, one has a hip thats completely worn away, at least one has already had a heart attack and when I sit with them in a pub our corner stinks of fiery jack and they all moan when they stand up, I on the other hand have hardly ever troubled the NHS with an ailment (so far) - the main difference is that they all played football at Sunday League and five-a-side level until recently, one still plays but he is also mental - they've all knackered themselves completely whilst I lived a sedentary life and still have parts of me that haven't been used yet.

Seriously folks, stick the gym membership in the back of the drawer and sit down for a nice cup of coffee and some chocolate cake, no-one ever died from relaxing.

I assume this is meant to be tongue in cheek, but on the off chance that it's not, I will just point out that every study ever conducted on the subject of physical exercise has shown it to be beneficial in a whole host of ways. Not football though, that's a mug's game if you like having functional knees.

None of my footballing friends have functional knees at 56 years of age

Owning a dog is one surefire way to make sure you get a healthy dose of exercise and rain.