Today Kody and I successfully went on a walk around the block with only relatively low value treats. It wasn't entirely intentional, I just wanted to give Kody a brief bathroom break outside and see what happened with these treats. But then Kody wanted to go further, so I decided we should try it. If he wasn't going to be successful, I would turn back soon as to not reinforce bad behaviors.
It worked out really well. He gave one small bark to a bicycle and that was it. I'm going to tell you what I do if Kody reaches the end of the leash, but I'm not sure if it's one hundred percent correct. When he reaches the end, I gently turn around, not to jerk him, but just to go the other way. Then when he catches up with me I turn around again. At that point he will be in the perfect position next to me and I will say "good job!", click the clicker, and give a treat. Today I tried giving a low value treat which he seemed to be rejecting, so I just stopped that. I also stopped clicking since he didn't care about the reward. But the turning back was definitely working.
Having said that, we have before used the back and forth technique over and over to give Kody the idea to pay attention to where I'm going, or at least that's what I think it's for. We have also used high value treats in conjunction with this. Some of the treats, like hot dog bits, are so high value that Kody will just stay near me and stare to get more. He'll stick to me like glue when I walk to get another treat. I think this conditions Kody to see that being near me is a good thing. So after combining all these methods for over a week, by the time we went on the walk today, Kody knew the drill and only needed mild reminding by me turning around if he started pulling. It was a relief to me to see that the training would stick even without the treats.
I am definitely going to understand this process fully though, and will ask the trainer more questions about what I've been doing right and wrong and post about what I find out.
At this point, I believe we all probably need a trainer to help us in person and I talk about this so you can see that positive techniques actually work, and what kind of things are involved when using positive training.
But what I'm noticing is that our behavior issues are mostly caused by the fact that Kody likes things, people, and even dogs. If Kody barks, it's usually because he's excited by an object. If I turn away until he's quiet and then walk back while he's silent and repeat as necessary he usually gets the picture pretty quick now. But doing that first with high value treats seems to ease us into the pattern.
I can't wait to actually know for sure what to do in situations. I really like the one-on-one training because I get to ask whatever questions I want about our specific situation, so things move forward a lot faster.