I learnt the look at that thing very early on (or 'what's this' in my case) - was the 1st thing a dog trainer taught me re my 2 as he particularly understood how more difficult it was re focusing 'busy' breeds.
My 2 were on lead once while the trainer was talking to someone else and he was going through some of this and in a sing-song voice he said the magic words 'whats this' but carried on talking and as he was expressive used his arms a lot - he'd already caught my 2s attention and it was like watching a conductor as wilf and roobs followed every movement of his hands as if they were attached to them. To maintain Wilf's attention out and about if there is the ultimate distraction a tennis ball does it for him - I hold that tennis ball and he won't take his eyes off it till its thrown no matter what the distraction is.
There's some great articles here re clicker training
http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/
