Again, a question about a dog's behavior.  If you tell your dog to sit and stay, how long would the dog obey if you gave her no other commands or a signal to break from that?   For example, we were sitting on our deck with some people and my dog was zipping around back and forth.  Finally, I got tired of this and commanded her to sit and stay (next to me).  This lasted about ten seconds and as soon as I turned my attention away from her, off she went again. Over and over.  When on heel, should your dog have to be told "heel" every five seconds or so to keep her there?  My dog is two years old now and distracted by everything and her ability to listen to commands, etc., is suffering.  While she knows the commands, she does not obey for long.  My wife says she has ADD, as she claims I have (might be some truth there for me anyway). 

"FWIW, I believe dogs can read us very well and know exactly when our attention in training has been distracted.
food for thought" - Pixie Bee 
 

I only have 3 years experience training gsps so dont really feel i can give advice as such, but i really wanted to jump in and back up what Pixie Bee says at the end of her post with my recent experience with Keely after reading a book about dogs picking up on your energy.

It basically expands on the thinking behind the fact that dogs pick up on your emotions and energy.  For a long time some of the training i was doing was motivated by me/us being sick of being pulled, jerked around, jumped on, etc and although it made me train consistently the only times either dog really excelled was when i felt really positive, patient and determined, and not because i was fed up with her bad habits - they can definately tell the difference between different motivations. 

There were many times i told myself that i was going to approach it in the above way, but really deep down i was just going through the motions and was actually really feeling negative, dejected, and my mind was maybe somewhere else, and those training sessions were a waste of time (and probably set us back too).

This morning i took her for a leash walk along the road which can be problematic as she is still a little scared of vehicles and sometimes lunges whilst they're passing.  I saw a stationary flat bed truck parked on the verge outside the stud farmers house and where Keely would usually start jumping around and backing away, i started (unintentionally) thinking about how nice it would be to be able to walk her without those things being a problem and remained calm and determined, and deep down i knew it wouldnt always be a problem and we both walked past without any problems.  On the return, i met the stud farmer at the truck and as he began talking to me and because i had to stop i felt uncomfortable because of how i thought she would react to stopping at the truck, and sure enough she started crawling under a hedge - my fault.  The trouble i had coaxing her out without reinforcing her actions

It's only since i've been aiming to introduce Keely to hpr activites and have something to aim for and can visualise her and me benefitting from it that the training has taken on a whole new meaning - it's working because i'm excited about what we're hoping to do, not because i'm thinking about preventing bad experiences all the time.  Sorry for the long rambling post, but i definately find that being honest about how i feel and then planning training accordingly definately helps!

First, I think you are expecting way too much of a 2 YO shorthair to sit and stay with all those distractions. That coupled with the fact that you were not paying attention, well shorthairs are opportunistic stinkers. Don't blame her, it is your fault as the handler. You set her up to fail and she did. Next time either put her in a crate or on a leash. Problem easily solved. I don't even expect by older well trained competition obedience dogs to sit indefinitely. They can sit for long periods (30 minutes or so) with distractions if I ask them too, the youngest is 4YO and the other two are 7 YO and 9 YO. My 1.5 YO is no where near able to do a very long sit or down.  Also, when I do that I am still paying attention to them and I correct them if they mess up. Don't ever give a command if you are not in a position to correct. All that will accomplish is adding a behavior you later have to fix.

As for heeling, I do not expect my dogs to heel except in competition. However, I do expect them to walk on a loose leash even without a command. I train heeling and loose leash walking as 2 distinct things. The secret is starting out with a loose leash and never letting that leash get tight. Stop or pop the leash whenever it gets tight. I also add in the command easy. It is amazing how fast they learn the length of the leash. I often use a 24 foot flexi with my young dogs and they will run around and have fun, but as they approach the end length they slow down and never pull me. It can be done, but you have to always be consistent and never let up, even when they get older. Training is for life and just like us dogs need refreshers every once in a while.

As long as I am looking/focused at him & there to correct. We've worked this up to about 5 minutes. But once we're not there to enforce....he's up!

We've been working on wait/stay while having our backs turned and with greater distractions - usually with the other person beside the dog to correct. Example exercise we do is having the other person knock on the door outside while dog is in a stay, or enforcing a stay after the door knock. Squirrels in the neighborhood have also been working as a great training tool for us (enforcing various commands while in front of a squirrel).

My understanding is that it's common for them to test us around the 1.5 to 2 age. And for the rest of their life. LOL

Right now we work on a focused heel in very short 1 to 2 minute sessions. I say the command once, if he breaks out of position or loses eye contact, I use "ah ah." Usually body position alone(left hand behind back, looking down at dog) is enough to signal the heel command - I am trying to avoid too many verbal commands. Like TB, I train heel and loose leash walking as different things.

This is my ultimate goal for heeling (or at least half of, LOL):

Like PB has said, by raising the bar and expectations, we have gotten more out of our dog.