My dog will refuse to do a command and then evade me when I need to do a correction. Will a drag leash help?

Mr. Frawley,

I am very glad to have found your site. I have spent many hours reading the great material you have posted. I have ordered and am waiting on your video Basic Obedience. Having read your philosophy and the basics of marker training and the three phases of training, I have one small question for you.

Our dog is about a year and a half old. I have been on the scene for the last several months and gradually learning how the dog should be trained. Due to mishandling things in the past or whatever, when she chooses to not obey a command she will also move to evade me. Inside the house she can't get very far, but if it takes 5 - 10 seconds to catch up with her, is what she did still enough in her mind that a correction is still relevant? Or is she now only aware of running away?

Perhaps I need to shorten the time with the use of a drag line in the house, but she might still evade for a few seconds and when she does I'm no longer sure whether the correction is actually telling her anything about what I didn't like.

If this is already answered in your video then please disregard but otherwise please point me in the right direction. She is an 18 month old pit bull who was top dog in the house until I started to take that position from her. She seems to have recognized her place now, but the training was very haphazard and there was no correction/distraction used.

Thanks for all your fine work,
John