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Hi Manali, Thanks for posting here and welcome to the forums! I can sense from your post that you are a very dedicated dog owner and you really deserve a pat on the back for all the work you have been doing for both Spotty and Luna. It is not easy when we have dogs with an unknown past, especially when they have endured traumatic events, and it takes time to allow them to come out of their shell. I will be posting for Spotty's issues first. So this first post is for her. I will be quoting some of the issues you are facing for ease of reading. Text appearing in blue is a hyperlink that you can click on for more information. "She is extremely scared of firecrackers and rain." Noise phobias are not the easiest behaviors to tackle, especially when the sounds dogs are fearful of don't occur often enough for a desensitization and counterconditioning program to take effect as it can happen with fireworks. If the fireworks are just once a year, it may therefore help to try to buffer as much as possible sound by playing the TV or radio on and offering to the dog a place to seek shelter that helps the dog feel safe (play pen covered with blankets, bathroom or closet). We can sometimes try to work using recordings of fireworks to help the dog habituate to the sound, but some dogs can tell the difference between recordings and the real thing, but it may still be worth a try. Calming aids may turn helpful too, but severe cases of noise phobias may require prescription medications from a veterinarian to take the edge off. Here is the "hear that" method I use to desensitize and counter-condition dogs fearful of noises. https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/fear-noises/ About the rain, is Spotty scared of the sound produced by rain or being out in the rain? "She is super duper aggressive around other dogs... I can never get her to stop barking or take another road or even a U-turn from the approaching dog without me pullling and dragging her away." Do you have dogs walking by your home window that Spotty can look at? If so, I would start from here. Here is an exercise you can try: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/brain-training/university/look-at-that/ This can be the foundation of an exercise you can then try on walks gradually starting at a distance from which your dog is under threshold and then progress very gradually. Baby steps. Another problem, entry of Luna my second, meant they both always want to go in different directions and Luna still listens but Spotty doesn't. And sometimes Luna does have to go to places that she likes to, to pee and potty and then again I pull and drag Spotty. Walking two dogs together can be particularly challenging, also because dogs tend to feed off each others' emotions. So Spotty can negatively influence Luna at some point if she spots a dog and reacts, however, if Luna is more confident that can help too. If you have a helper who can walk Luna a little ahead, while you walk Spotty (who sounds like needs your guidance the most on walks) that would be helpful so that each dog can have the individualized attention they need. The other option is to walk each dog separately. It's been 24 days now since I've started your training. And Luna has shown immense progress.... I am very happy to hear that! Pat your back for a job well done and Kudos to Luna! So, Spotty still follows sit, stand, lie down, jump, paw and other paw but on her bed. Nowhere but her bed. Not even on my home floor. So, you can tell we haven't done a thing outdoors. I also took my time to understand what the root of this problem is and maybe try and fix it without bothering you. Read more of what you've provided and maybe apply those techniques. I tried everything from changing the reward and making it only high value. I also understood for all dogs reward doesn't necessarily mean treats and food. She loves head pets so I changed to that. I also got her super excited and played with her before starting her training. None of this worked. But today, I had one of my mattress lying on the floor and I thought let me see if that helps and help it did. She followed all the cues/commands she knows flawlessly and instantly. But here's the problem, anywhere outdoors, I obviously can't be carrying a mattress or even a thick quilt. It's already too much handling these two nutties down. So as much as I count that one step that she's taking towards training and learning, I don't know where to take it from here. Sometimes certain dogs dislike floors for some reason or another. Perhaps she doesn't feel much traction on the floor and this scares her or perhaps she doesn't like the cold feel or for some reason she had some unpleasant event take place in the past on a floor (arthritis pain?). We can only guess. The mattress on the floor is big improvement for her. Next, I would try with a non-slip rug and see how it goes. The jump from indoors to outdoors is quite large though, so you may need more baby steps. For example, you may need to bring a rug outdoors and practice there, before you try outside. The issue may be more deep-rooted though. Perhaps she doesn't feel safe enough outside to attend to your cues. Since you mentioned in the past she wouldn't walk farther than 300 feet, and the fact she reacts so strongly to dogs on walks, suggests a high level of anxiety. Here's the thing: dogs cannot cognitively function well they are anxious. It's sort of like asking a person terrified of heights to solve a math problem for sake of comparison. So we may need to work more on helping her feel safe in her surroundings through positive associations. I also read that the intensity with which a dog takes a treat says a lot about them. If so, Spotty takes treat I would say with anger. She does small attack like thing with her mouth to take them. She sometimes ends up hurting my fingers too. I don't think all these are good signs. Yes, a dog who takes treats quickly and roughly can be a sign of a dog being over threshold. However, it can also be just a matter of the dog never learning to take treats with more finesse. It can help to do this exercise with her: https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/train-dog-take-treats-gently/ But you also want to monitor in what contexts she takes treats roughly to evaluate whether there is something that is preoccupying her. Last but not least, some dogs may have an uneven bite (malocclusion) and this may cause them to take treats roughly, but this is something your vet would have likely noticed on a physical exam. She has also not once showed any interest in any of the different toys that I get for her. Never. But she loves to play with me. I do this slow, stealthy hand movement which playfully provokes her and she gets all jumpy and runs back and forth on her bed. That's one other thing I've tried to do outdoors to get her to follow some cue, any cue. Didn't work. I take again the fact that she doesn't follow your playful movement outdoors as a sign that she is not at ease. Playing is incompatible with being anxious, meaning that in general dogs play only when they feel safe and relaxed. It could be that outdoors she is too hypervigilant about her surroundings and your play and training for this reason doesn't generalize and "carry outside."