As with people, good manners and discipline start early in a dog's life. If you wait til a dog has tons of bad habits (like crapping in the house) and won't listen to your most basic commands (sit, stay, lie down, heel), when they're 3 or 4, or however old your dogs are now, it's going to be fucking hard.
It partly comes down to responsible dog ownership and being involved with your dogs on daily basis. You can't be just leaving them to their own devices while you work or go out. Forgive me if I'm wrong, just going on previous threads, but IIRC you let your dogs roam the neighborhood. Meaning, they don't get walked on a lead, they shit where they want, scare the crap out of and/or piss off the neighbors, are out making more unwanted dogs, etc. etc. and generally have bad habits.
On the upside, those are some street wise dogs which is always good, but that's not being a responsible pet owner.
In contrast our dog gets walked twice a day, like clockwork... our schedules conform to the dog's needs, not the other way around. She's always on a lead, and we always have poop bags to pick up the shit. She's in the house or in the enclosed yard during the day. She pisses in the yard, but never takes a shit there. She hasn't taken a piss or a shit in the house since she was about 6 months old, though she peed in a friend's house once who had another dog. The few times she has had diarrhea at night she wakes us up to let us know she needs to go out and we get up and take her. She eats only this brand of food from Alberta, Canada
Dog Food | Orijen which we swear by, and a little bit of cooked scrap meat/veg from dinner.
Mine would be dead if we gave her free reign. Stolen for baiting dog fights, poisoned, killed by fishing line/tackle, run over, or taken to the pound to be put down (they don't screw around here at the gov't run killing stations, and they're corrupt as fuck). She would always have the shits because, left unchecked, she will eat anything.
She knows sit, stay, come here, lie down, heel, paw, roll over (can only go one way though), leave it, look, who's that, where's the cat, and a few other bits. The girl has also done some agility and relay classes with her so she can do a few other maneuvers like going in a figure 8 through the girl's legs, come about to heel or sit, backing up on command and stuff like that. She would appear to enjoy it and gets rewarded for it with treats and added affection.
All these skills are good when controlling her in a public place, around other people, kids, dogs, etc. plus these kinds of exercises are good for her mental development. She can be obstinate too, and if she doesn't want to participate, so be it. She's certainly not our "obedient little servant", but a well mannered dog which is important in a civilized society.
So if I were you, I would find a qualified expat teaching obedience classes. Get some quality harnesses or collars and leads. No choke chains or spike collars or inhumane bullshit like that. It's simply going to take some month's of dedicated daily work to get the dogs into shape. Agility/relay classes are also good for getting dogs listening to your commands.
Then again, when you say shit like...
I just can't bring myself to do it though.
...
So you know what? Fuck it.
I'm guessing this is all just going to fall on deaf ears and you'll do nothing of the sort.
Good luck bro.
ps. Have you checked what the regulations are for taking dogs to wherever it is you're going? To import a dog into Europe, it needs to be blood tested, then re vaccinated, dewormed, within 30 days before travelling, and all of this info needs to be recorded in a passport, and the dog needs to be microchipped. It used to be even stricter, especially entering the UK, which included a 90 day quarantine. Fortunately they've relaxed those rules somewhat.
Veronica.
