we had an obedience trainer come for the outside dogs, it was a 12 week course, if I'm not mistaken..every two weeks, he would come, show us what he wanted to do with them each time, then would give us typed out instructions, with pictures(of course, we kept that too)..sometimes, I think it helps, if you can find a trainer to come and do a one on one with your pup..check out
www.alpha-dog.org
if you go to the gallery part and look at med. dogs, our golden and shepherd are on there(Kasey and Lexie)