Ain't misbehavin': Fido goes to Corcoran's finishing school.

With co-op and condominiums adopting stricter rules regarding pets, the Corcoran Group recently became the first New York real estate company to retain a professional dog trainer to teach dogs to pass board interviews.

"I don't think there's a broker in the industry who doesn't have a story about what went wrong with a dog at the co-op board meeting," said Barbara Corcoran, chairman and founder of the Corcoran Group, about the decision to retain a dog trainer.

Using his dog Finney as a model, Bash Dibra demonstrated his pooch-training techniques last week to brokers at the Corcoran Group's Carnegie Hall office. A self-proclaimed "dog trainer to the stars," Dibra has trained dogs belonging to celebrities like Woody Allen, Henry Kissinger and Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.

Under the agreement, Corcoran brokers will refer their clients to Dibra who will offer his services at a reduced rate. Dibra normally charges $300 an hour, but did not disclose the discounted rate he will charge customers referred to him by Corcoran. Dibra said most of his customers are individual dog owners; Corcoran is the only real estate agency that has retained him.

With the tight housing market showing few signs of loosening, co-op and condominium boards have become choosier in selecting their neighbors, with misbehaving or exotic pets topping the list of reasons prospective tenants are shown the door, brokers said.

"There's more focus on the idea that you don't want to lose an apartment because of a dog," said Corcoran, who learned about Dibra from neighbors after she moved into a new Park Avenue co-op.

Corcoran broker Maureen Goldstein said the "second or third question" she asks a client is whether they own pets.

"I don't ask people if they have children, I ask them if they have pets," Goldstein said.

Dibra said dogs typically require three to six, one-hour training sessions to be fully prepared for a board interview. Charging his normal rates, the training would cost between $600 to $2,000. Goldstein said she did not think the cost would be prohibitive.

"People spend thousands on their pets," she said. "They're not going to worry about spending a few thousand more to train their dog."

With their acceptance into a co-op or condominium on the line, some people will resort to extreme measures to ensure their acceptance doesn't "go to the dogs." Brokers said they've heard of people who have brought "dog imposters" to board meetings, or dogs that resembled their own pet, but were better behaved. One broker admitted that, after her dog died, she got another adult dog that looked similar to avoid problems with the new dog's acceptance into her building.

Brokers estimate about 50 percent of co-ops and condominiums prohibit pets. Of the buildings that allow them, about a quarter require an interview. Dibra said he teaches dogs to be "good canine citizens" with the three "P's" of patience, practice and persistence. Among lessons he teaches the dogs are proper behavior in lobbies and elevators, and around people. He teaches owners how to prevent dogs from barking and how to better understand their dogs' barks, facial expressions, and body language.

"I train the owners to train their dogs," Dibra said.

Fred Romano, a Corcoran broker who hired Dibra 18 years ago, gave high marks to the training.

"My dog was trained for life," he noted.