What is the best way to potty train a puppy?

You didn't state how old your puppy was when you first brought it home. We have a purebred German Shepherd that we brought home at precisely 8 weeks of age. I had her fully house trained at 9 1/2 weeks by carefully watching her almost 24/7. Watch for your puppy to start sniffing around the floor and becoming agitated. This is the first sign that the puppy want to urinate or defecate. Gently say, NO, and lift the dog up and take her outside. She will start to sniff around the ground again and when she does, give her lots of praise and say "yes!". She will get the idea very quickly, especially being a shepherd/labrador cross. When God gave out the "Smarts", the Shepherd was first in line and the lab. just behind. Each of my own shepherds that I house trained were trained in less than 2 weeks. When nature called, they would run to the door and scratch at it and yelp for attention. Whatever you do, don't ever smack your puppy with a newspaper, or, God forbid, with a stick or with your hand! I have seen some very misguided and cruel people actually rub their puppies nose in their excreta to teach them not to defecate or urinate in the house.

To win your puppy over with training, lots of lavish praise and a small treat works wonders and will create the bond that you and the puppy need. Success with house training requires patience and careful monitoring

Wedge

It depends whether you want it to do it's needs outdoors or indoors or both. The newspaper thing never fails. Barking can be the cause of boredom, so is the shoe biting thing, so make sure you are providing it enough exercise and keep it entertained, buy it a lot of bones and treats mainly chewtoys.

The breed has nothing to do with how good they are with potty training.

The easiest way is just to take her outside when she needs to go potty and if she goes potty in the house tell her "NO" and take her outside. Our dog used to bark a lot too and chew on everything so we got a squirt bottle and whenever he used bark or chew on something he isn't supposed to chew on we'd squirt him with a bit of water right on the head, he hated it so he stopped really fast.

Positive reinforcement is the best way to go....take your puppy outside often and when he does his business give lots of praise (my dog pees on queue, if that makes sense...I can say 'go and pee' and he does and then I'll say 'good pee!'...feel silly doing it, but it works!). As for the chewing, while I agree with Maria's advice, I did this to another dog I had and he developed a fear of water..so depends if you want to take him swimming or not later on etc. Puppies will eventually grow out of it, but tend to go for things with your scent on them..so maybe give him an old shirt/shoe with your scent on it and keep everything else you value out of reach (I also learnt this after my phone got chewed). But the best advice I can give you is to Google reputable dog training sites for free advice. Also 'dog schools' are well worth the small outlay. Good luck!