I've been working with Buddy on the loose leash method described here:
http://clickersolutions.com/articles/2002c/llw.htm
I think I might be doing it slightly incorrectly, though, or not getting something quite across.
We are up to the point where we walk with the leash in the least distracting environment outside (which for us is the front yard... but is the back yard in the thread). He walks beside me fine most of the time, except for a few things.
When he is walking beside me we will take our steps and then I will stop and c/t him while he is standing beside me in the position I want him in. However, after this he has a habit of getting out of position and then standing in front of me looking at me. I usually just stand there and wait for him to get back beside me, hoping he will figure out that obviously since we only move when he's beside me, nothing will happen when he's in front of me looking at me. Instead, he will try everything possible to get me to respond
except stand next to me in the position that was getting him goggles of treats just moments ago (ie, sit, laydown, jump up and down, whine and run around, go up and lay on his bed, ect.). After this I just have to give up and lure him back to where I want him to go and then we move on. Or while he's standing in front of me I'll just raise my hand out to the side which makes him come over and stand by me facing me, but still not facing in the same direction I am. More recently instead of standing directly in front of me he now stands in front of me in front of my right hand (I have him walk on my right due to the nature of traffic in my area as well as blind turns) so he's getting closer to where I want him to be, but he still doesn't get it that he has to stay beside me. I don't know WHY he WANTS to stand in front of me when it gets him nothing in these exercises, but he does for whatever reason. My problem is simply getting him to stay beside me whether in motion or stationary. His loose leash walking is just fine when we're moving; we can walk 15 steps in between c/t's without any problem, I just don't want to advance any further until he figures this out.
Also, when I c/t him for walking beside me I feed him out of my hand almost always except for every once and a while when it might drop in which case I'll just point it out to him with my hand so he finds it and we can move on faster. Our problem is that even when he's gotten the treat from my hand and nothing fell to the ground, quite often he just start obsessively sniffing all over the ground looking for the imaginary treat that didn't fall to the ground but he's sure did (or at least that's what it looks like to me). And he won't even just sniff in that one area either, he'd sniff all across the entire yard if I didn't call him off of it and get him moving beside me again. But every time the invisible treat falls to the ground he falls behind me because he's busy sniffing for something that's not there because he already ate it. How on earth do I convince him that nothing's there and what I have in my pocket is better anyway?
Aside from these two small but frequently occuring problems, his loose leash walking beside me is great. I've been taking it nice and slowly with him building steps up one at a time. I have confidence that he could probably go more than 15 steps by now, but I'm not pushing anything, and I'm not going to go to the next step on the thread until we've got these two problems sorted out or else it will just get in the way the more we advance.