Starting loose leash walking with Clyde

When Clyde and I first left the animal shelter, he nearly pulled my arm off walking on the leash.  They were probably all looking at me, wondering whether I could even handle this dog.  The guy gave me a head halter, which we tested out for about 2 seconds, as he showed me how to put it on.  Clyde was not a fan of course.  I took it off of him after that.  I managed to get him out the door and into my car without being dragged around too much.  :P

I think I have more patience than when I first got Zoë (the best dog EVAR).  I tried the method of stopping when he pulls and moving forward only when he lets the leash go slack and/or comes back to my side.  Luckily, he's either quicker on the uptake, or I just, well, have more patience!  We were walking pretty decently Day 1.  Day 2, we only walked briefly on the leash (he was perfect) and on Day 3, he was good!  Clyde was walking perfectly (on-leash) by my left side and Zoë was walking (off-leash) on my right side.  We were heading back to the house when all of a sudden, I heard a lady start screaming and hollering.  After a few moments, I realized she was trying to call back her two off-leash dogs, who were headed our way.

Her yelling was so disturbing that I lost my focus on the dogs and they followed suit.  Clyde was very distracted by her yelling (he wasn't looking at her but kept flicking his ears around--he was nervous) and walked in a circle around me, tangling me on the leash.  Zoë was off sniffing the grass.  Finally, she grabbed her dogs, I called Zoë back, untangled Clyde and got us all back walking nicely, side-by-side.  Was she frantically calling for them because she saw he was a doberman?  Or does she do that every time her dogs try to run towards other dogs?  I don't know.  I would say, if you are that frantic about your off-leash dogs running towards other people/dogs, then please don't walk them off-leash and/or train better recalls.  Geesh.