we have a wonderful cocker who we love dearly. He's had a tough few months with us moving house and a week of him being v poorly (recovered now).
he was doing really well pre all of this but has suddenly regressed in his training. His walking on lead has gone to pot as has his recall (though it's not bad). The biggest issue i would say is a lack of control - I do sometimes feel that we are on the verge of him being out of control. He is a clever dog and knows exactly what to do, just a lot of the time he doesn't want to do it!
this morning I took him out for a walk - I would say his lead walking was ok for about 50% of the time. Got to the park but didn't want to let him off lead because we are new to the area and I'm not 100% sure where all the access points are to roads. Because I didn't let him off lead, he was doing the bowing thing to try and get dogs to play and then barking when they wouldn't and would not stop. He was straining on the lead, right at the end of it. I have a long lead but it's pointless because all he does is pull to the end of it and then strain on that. In the end I left and took him home.
the trainer wants us to go back to basics and focus on sit and stay because she says this is the first point in controlling the dog. So sit and stay indoors with no distractions, then the garden, then out with other dogs. So we are literally going back to the training we were doing with him when he was 4 months and just emphasising it again.
Does it sound like we are doing the right things? I'm just really worried about not doing the right things (he's actually dp's dog but can you tell I have totally fallen in love with him 
).