I'm training my 5 month old dachshund pup to walk nicely on the lead & I can't help feeling that using a clicker would be helpful. However, once I've trained him to walk on his own nicely, I need to train him to walk nicely when my other dog is next to him him. He was clicker trained so I don't want to confuse him if I'm clicking Reggie for getting it right. If I use 2 different clickers ( 2 different sounds) will they understand that each dog has to listen for a diffrent click? Obviously Reggie will have to be trained using the different sound but can I train Hoaby to ignore that particular click & how?

It will work with two different clicker sounds ;)

you can also use the same principle and not use a 'clicker' ;)  I had to do the same thing, train one dog to walk alongside my other dog.  This meant going out at least 3 times a day - usually more ;)  each one alone and then together.  I use a tongue click for the second dog (like you hear horse riders/owners using ;) ) 

You may find it easier to train the second one if the first one is fairly good to start with, once they get the hang of walking 'to heel' on their own (by my side in my case ;) ) then pick which one you want to walk on the outside and stick to it (you may want the dogs to choose at first ;) )  mine will walk together beautifully now and we get loads of comments from people, I always point out that it's because of the amount of work we put in when they were pups :-D

Hi
The Learning about Dogs guys (Kay Lawrence et al) don't actually advocate the clicker for lead walking - Kay runs 'Loose Lead Walking' workshops instead, which teaches what it says on the can as opposed to heel work.  Have a look on their website for more info.  This is what I did with my first dog.

With the pup I went to a different clicker trainer and we used the target of the back of the left hand as the cue for lead work.  What I will say is that it is one thing getting the dogs to walk nicely individually but quite something else when the two are side by side.  For quite some time I had to have one dog either side of me as the pup didn't have sufficient self-control not to pester the older dog and try and gambol along hanging off his ears or whatever. When she had calmed down I treated the walking side by side as a totally new exercise;  by this time they were familiar with my 'dogs' command which means both of you.  So 'dogs come'= recall for both dogs together and 'dogs close' = loose heel for both dogs.  Therefore they only got clicked and treated when BOTH were in the correct position.  It is very easy to get wrong (your timing) and am not convinced that clicker is ideal for this exercise.  Interestingly, as the bitch has got older (and become more the controlling force!) she has started correcting the boy if he gets too far in front!  :-)

Thanks for your replies - I have the Learning About Dogs booklet called Walk With Me which I have dug out of my bookshelf & I will remind myself of what it says. I also have the Turid Rugaas book on loose lead walking but as I only managed to get my springer walking properly after I'd been shown how to use a clicker, I thought I would go down the same route.  I do wonder if it will be too complicated trying to use the clicker with 2 of them though. Yesterdays training walk with Reggie went so well that I think I may abandon the clicker anyway as the ham I used got his attention immediately & he even walked reasonably well with Hoaby when we did our afternoon walk together & with no ham. Knowing Reg, it was a one off & I will be back to square one again today! He does seem very keen to learn though