nm_model is sort of an as-is feature, and doesn't work well (or at all) with every single model you try. If you look in past posts in the forum, 'dog' is one of the models that is more reliably unreliable.
As far as crashing when you enter the player menu, that's strange. It's never happened to me.
...and as far as overall reliability, when I'm running an unembellished install of NemoD, Mani, ES, XAD, and ETB, it's an extremely stable server. And the pure NemoD server I'm running now (plus ES and ETB, of course) is as stable as they come.
But the ultimate answer is yes, NemoD is not a final product - hence the zero in front of all the version numbering (v0.2.9.8 instead of v1.2.9.
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-Faaip
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