I am pretty sure my issue is engagement. I haven't found what lights her up other than anything on the ground or....squirrel!

The food I use so far works good in garage but even then she is maybe medium crazy for food. So I can grab her and after like 4 YES she is sniffing all over and even shoving it in her face she is like the ground is awesome. Toys can work a little more but not much. Super distracted, short attention span and I guess I haven't found what sets her off. I will try and do a short video of engagement session to show her and myself.

Any tricks or suggestions for tough dog to get engaged. Food ideas? For example, I am concerned about removing her normal food to only do food rewards for training. How will feeding her those happy howies type treats help her body and growing bones. Don't I need a better food source to ensure she gets good nutrition? or do I just use her kibble as the treats?

Also as a side note: on suggestions to use obedience in our training. I have the Micheal Ellis food dvd and in that video he wants the positions learned and then you come back with verbal cues. We are working on the positions. Should I just start using verbal as soon as she can consistently do the positions just to get her more to do. Or get her doing all the basic positions first then come back with verbals cues? Or just stick with his formula in the video?

Once I have her engagement the rest should follow.

I agree that "engagement" seems to be a part of what's going on here.

Dogs behind a fence are a whole different issue the greeting friend's dogs on the street.

The first is a barrier aggression issue (dogs behind the fence) while the other is normal behavior for greeting other dogs if that's something you allow.

Keeping engagement with you will help this issue tremendously if done correctly.

Feeding her during training means using her regular food as the reward, and not feeding her between training sessions. For your medium-food-driven dog, this may work well.

My dog is heavily distracted by the environment, as well, but has a much higher food drive. I do a quick drive-building drill if the distractions start to creep in (sign of diminishing drive).