Jo, I'll try holding the lead like you suggest. That's an interesting idea. Also, I'll give the tug a try too.

I don't know how much she's into tugs. It's not something we do a lot of. Tug-of-war is one of my last resorts of redirection most of the time.

I don't have any experience with shepherds or collies, but I'm surprised how much "sight" she has. She's distracted by birds overhead, bees in nearby bushes, paper or leaves fluttering off in the distance. All this is outside what I would consider "normal" range of vision for the dogs I have experience with. Not sure how this relates to walking on a leash, but it gives more info on her distractions.

BTW, I thought I had posted this, but I'll try again.

Seeing everything just tells me she is highly intelligent and trying to make sense of her world.

 Quote: doug alcorn

All this is outside what I would consider "normal" range of vision for the dogs I have experience with.

Dogs, as predators, have much better vision for movement/motion than we have, even at a distance. This is why a jiggling toy is so attractive to cats and dogs.

They don't see as much detail as us and are red/green colour blind.

 Quote: angela burrell

 Quote: doug alcorn

All this is outside what I would consider "normal" range of vision for the dogs I have experience with.

Dogs, as predators, have much better vision for movement/motion than we have, even at a distance.

I can attest to this. I was outside at night - it was dark - with Kaiser so that he could use the restroom (so to speak). Well something caught his attention - he growled and barked - I looked to see what it was and saw NOTHING. I immediately told him "enough".

A couple seconds later a teenager with black pants and a black hoodie came from around the side of a bush from our neighbors house.

MUCH better vision! I laughed and then praised him for a job well done. Boy did I feel stupid telling him "enough".

I checked out the sensation harness and the instructions. All I could visualize was my Lucy spinning like a top.

 Quote: doug alcorn

Much of the time she walks out in front. When she starts pulling on the leash I'll stop and call her name. When she looks back at me I'll mark and reward. She'll walk back to me for her treat and about 90% of the time she'll bound back off to the end of her lead. Sometimes she'll look at me and not bother to come back for the reward.

Sometimes I really feel like she's flat out, willfully ignoring me. I know she can hear me say her name and make "kissy" noises and click my tonge etc; but she won't look at me. I'll stop and she'll stop at the end of her lead and sit and watch everything but me. I'm not sure what to do about this but wait it out. When we do just straight up marker training I can get her to watch me very easily. I haven't named it. I'm just saying her name and mark/reward when she looks at me. I must not be doing this right because I feel like unless we're in a formal marker training session she treats her name as the "watch" command as completely optional.

Doug, this is more to the marker part of your post. I preface with there are many more who have much more experience than me. I am still a newbie and have a small house pet and want mostly manners.

With that said, make sure you are marking correctly. I understood you to say that when you mark her to look at or come to you, she doesn't always do that even tho you are saying her name, clucking, etc. To mark the desired behavior, you only give the command once (the way I understand it). In other words, you may be teaching her that you call her name, make clicking/clucking/kissing noises, say her name and THEN she comes.

Hopefully, some of the old hands on marker training will chime in here.

I noticed when I was teaching mine to sit before I put the leash on to take her out to potty. I would say sit (this is after she was marker trained to sit) and we kinda got in a habit of me saying sit and then she didn't right away, so I would say sit again, touch her near the tail, say sit, maybe again. I KNEW she knew the sit but she would wait until I went thru this routine. I then realized I had conditioned her to not sit until I had gone thru the whole sit, sit, touch, sit deal.

I then started say sit, and the whole world stood still until she sat. She got in step in less than a day.

 Quote: Jo Harker

I checked out the sensation harness and the instructions. All I could visualize was my Lucy spinning like a top.

I get those pretty little yellow flowers in my yard, too. LOL

I've been having leash issues with Duke where I couldn't get a really loose leash because he'd just take up any extra slack. I made two changes, from info gleaned from the site, that seem to have given him the point. I walk him with the leash behind my legs, behind held in my right hand, and his shoulder just slightly behind my left leg. Then, I give him regular breaks to run around like a puppy...a few minutes and maybe 50 yards, every third to half mile. I've only done that a few times and now I can let a 6' leash touch the ground with his hip even with my leg and walking on his own. It's probably compulsion training, but I'm not teaching a formal heel yet so this works and makes our walks much more enjoyable for both of us. I did teach him to sit when I stop walking and come sit by my left leg through marker training though.