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Wow! You have your hands full with three puppies. I sure wouldn't be brave enough to take on all that. You have your work cut out for you. I'd do like it was said. Take one pup at a time out in your yard if it's fenced or find a fenced area. Use a harness when you have to walk the dog on a leash rather than a collar so you don't cause tracheal damage. Get some high value, yummy tasty treats....tiny pea sized and put them in your pocket. (mozerella cheese, turkey hot dogs sliced lengthwise twice and then cross wise, microwave on paper towel for a minute and dried off make good quick treats.)
What I'd do is let your pup chase a ball in this fenced area and get the zoomies out a little bit...no leash. Let him (I'll use him even if it's a her) explore the area a little. Make sure this is not right after a meal so your pup is a bit hungry. In fact, practice a long time after he has eaten.
Start walking away from him and make some goofy, squeeky, fun sounds or take along a squeeky toy....whatever might entice your pup to come close to you. Have you used a clicker? Read up on that but for now I'll just explain what I'd do if I didn't have a clicker. When the dog comes somewhere close to along side you, praise and give a little pea sized treat. He doesn't have to be perfectly close, just sort of close for now. Keep walking, don't stop. Walk all around the field or yard. Don't pay much attention to your pup. Look straight ahead. If your pup follows along with you, either hand him a treat or drop it on the ground but keep going. Then stop. If your pup looks at you, praise/treat. Use treats liberally for now. The trouble may be that when your pup takes a few nice steps, you haven't reinforced those enough. If you wait for him to give you more and he blows it by lunging, you just missed an opportunity to reinforce nice walking. So you want to build up a store room or an account of lots of reinforcments. The more the dog gets for nice walking, the more likely he'll be to repeat that which got him the goodies.
If he walks somewhere else, don't pay any attention. Now this should be an area where it's fairly boring, not too many exciting things and no other dogs or people....very low distraction area. He's already checked out everything when you first started and he got to run around freely a bit.
Just practice for as long as he's interested. In fact, before you think he's apt to lose interest, stop and do something super fun with him. You want to end on a good note where he was successful.
Remember to reinforce often, every couple of steps where he is close to you on your left. (or however you want him positioned) As he gets approximately close to you and often, raise the criteria so that he has to be even better positioned than before in order to get a treat....just gradually ask for better. This is all with NO leash. He's going to get to choose and you need to make sure you have something which motivates him more than whatever else is in the environment which may be motivating or interesting to him. You set him up so that your motivator is even more interesting by taking him when he's hungry, when he's gotten the ants out of his pants, where it's a relatively boring environment. (low distractions)
After you do this for a while and he starts having fun keeping along side you, start adding a cue word, "let's go." (for example) Only use this when he IS alongside you for the time being. Once you think he's made the association between "lets go" and being along side you, you can start adding it ahead of time. Be sure to reward for a correct response EVERY time for now. Only when he gets very reliable and solid will you start skipping a time or two or three...phasing out somewhat the number of treats for nice steps. In other words, instead of treating every 2 or 3 steps as you've been doing, you'll ask for 6 or 8 before giving a treat. Then 10 steps, then 3, then 12, then 6. Skip around a little. Keep him guessing and trying to earn the reward. Later still, you'll be able to phase them out a lot more. But that's not till later....till this is like habit to him.
After you've practiced off leash for a week or two, if he's walking along side you nicely and associating "let's go" with that, if he's been reinforced enough for looking up at you by getting "paid" for it, and (I forgot to add this) you've associated "watch" or his name with his looking at you....he's really quite engaged with what's going on, snap on the leash and do the same thing with the leash on. Do some stops and turns as you have all along but now with the leash. If he comes to the end of the leash and there's any tension, stop or turn the other way.
If you make walking nicely the best thing ever, lots of fun, tasty treats, he'll get onto it. It takes time. Your dogs are just pups and you need to enjoy your training time. So make it short, look at it like a game and don't get too serious about it. After all, these dogs aren't going to pull you out in front of traffic. There's no big rush. Take it easy and skip around too. If you get frustrated with that, switch for a while and do some other tricks something you both like and come back to it later.
What I'd do is let your pup chase a ball in this fenced area and get the zoomies out a little bit...no leash. Let him (I'll use him even if it's a her) explore the area a little. Make sure this is not right after a meal so your pup is a bit hungry. In fact, practice a long time after he has eaten.
Start walking away from him and make some goofy, squeeky, fun sounds or take along a squeeky toy....whatever might entice your pup to come close to you. Have you used a clicker? Read up on that but for now I'll just explain what I'd do if I didn't have a clicker. When the dog comes somewhere close to along side you, praise and give a little pea sized treat. He doesn't have to be perfectly close, just sort of close for now. Keep walking, don't stop. Walk all around the field or yard. Don't pay much attention to your pup. Look straight ahead. If your pup follows along with you, either hand him a treat or drop it on the ground but keep going. Then stop. If your pup looks at you, praise/treat. Use treats liberally for now. The trouble may be that when your pup takes a few nice steps, you haven't reinforced those enough. If you wait for him to give you more and he blows it by lunging, you just missed an opportunity to reinforce nice walking. So you want to build up a store room or an account of lots of reinforcments. The more the dog gets for nice walking, the more likely he'll be to repeat that which got him the goodies.
If he walks somewhere else, don't pay any attention. Now this should be an area where it's fairly boring, not too many exciting things and no other dogs or people....very low distraction area. He's already checked out everything when you first started and he got to run around freely a bit.
Just practice for as long as he's interested. In fact, before you think he's apt to lose interest, stop and do something super fun with him. You want to end on a good note where he was successful.
Remember to reinforce often, every couple of steps where he is close to you on your left. (or however you want him positioned) As he gets approximately close to you and often, raise the criteria so that he has to be even better positioned than before in order to get a treat....just gradually ask for better. This is all with NO leash. He's going to get to choose and you need to make sure you have something which motivates him more than whatever else is in the environment which may be motivating or interesting to him. You set him up so that your motivator is even more interesting by taking him when he's hungry, when he's gotten the ants out of his pants, where it's a relatively boring environment. (low distractions)
After you do this for a while and he starts having fun keeping along side you, start adding a cue word, "let's go." (for example) Only use this when he IS alongside you for the time being. Once you think he's made the association between "lets go" and being along side you, you can start adding it ahead of time. Be sure to reward for a correct response EVERY time for now. Only when he gets very reliable and solid will you start skipping a time or two or three...phasing out somewhat the number of treats for nice steps. In other words, instead of treating every 2 or 3 steps as you've been doing, you'll ask for 6 or 8 before giving a treat. Then 10 steps, then 3, then 12, then 6. Skip around a little. Keep him guessing and trying to earn the reward. Later still, you'll be able to phase them out a lot more. But that's not till later....till this is like habit to him.
After you've practiced off leash for a week or two, if he's walking along side you nicely and associating "let's go" with that, if he's been reinforced enough for looking up at you by getting "paid" for it, and (I forgot to add this) you've associated "watch" or his name with his looking at you....he's really quite engaged with what's going on, snap on the leash and do the same thing with the leash on. Do some stops and turns as you have all along but now with the leash. If he comes to the end of the leash and there's any tension, stop or turn the other way.
If you make walking nicely the best thing ever, lots of fun, tasty treats, he'll get onto it. It takes time. Your dogs are just pups and you need to enjoy your training time. So make it short, look at it like a game and don't get too serious about it. After all, these dogs aren't going to pull you out in front of traffic. There's no big rush. Take it easy and skip around too. If you get frustrated with that, switch for a while and do some other tricks something you both like and come back to it later.
Sorry, I couldn't resiist, I'll just be over here cracking myself up, don't mind me.
