Hi!
I've been lurking on this site for over 2yrs and have always found the info I needed and never needed to post before: except for this one question.
I have been searching the forum for this for the past several days, so if I missed a thread discussing it, I apologize.

I have a 2yr old dog who is going through basic obedience training with me now and he is doing great. He has learned everything required very quickly but we are having trouble maintaining 'watch me' while the dog is moving. As long as he is stationary in any position, he will watch me for several min under very high distraction. The problem is, as soon as I ask him to even take a single step, his nose goes straight to the ground and he starts sniffing around. I have been following the advice on some of the other threads on keeping focus while heeling and am trying to work up to a single step. So far, its been 14 days and he has only looked at me for a grand total of 2 steps.

My question:
This dog is a spaniel and when I first got him, I found it amusing when he would find rabbit or bird trails on our walks because his little tail would start spinning in circles and he would get so excited, so I encouraged him to follow them and then find whatever he was following if possible. This continues up to this day. When we go on our walks, he zig-zags around until he finds something and then we both run off to try to flush out whatever it is. Is my encouraging him to follow tracks on our walks confusing him because I want him to keep his head up during training?
Do I need to try to get him to keep his head up on our walks also?

Thank you for your time everyone.

Great thing is training on Spit.. Spit treets to his mouth... It takes practice, but it is a great training tool.. I am just starting and my pup is getting the point, but believe me the cheese is all over his head.. he cathes one in ten now..he will get very good at this. I hope <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
When It comes to your walk.. well it is play time I would not do it. I just dont think that it is a great habit to go and chase rabbits... at least he doestn eat them like mine used to <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />