Obedience school is stupid; the dog is yours and in the end he has to obey you, not a trainer and large breeds with prey drive are often not responsive to treats or praise. If you spend the time, it is easy, just put him on a leash. Point a direction and verbally command, “This way” with authority, if he pulls, change directions, pointing and verbal “This way”. “Halt” is good too, but you need to be strong enough to make him stop. I like “Wait”, which I start the very first time when they are small. It means I release the leash, and command “Wait”... they freeze in place until I physically touch them and say “Good boy/girl”. I’ve been doing this with Chows (a stubborn a breed as any you will find) for forty years and they are all wonderful companions before they are even one year old.
You are on the right track and that is good advice. Most important is practicing both punishments and rewards. A firm “No!” every time it pulls hard.
Here is how I have trained dozens. First don’t walk them. Just stay in the yard and do this repeatedly then after the session just go back in the house and don’t actually go anywhere. When they start to respond to the training sessions well then take walks as a stage two reward.
They expect to go for a walk every time you leash them. You have to squash this expectation. First teach them that you might not even go anywhere at all. Just stand in one place and not go anywhere. Every time they pull yell a firm “No!”. At some point they will give up and either sit down or lay down. That is when you reward them and tell them they are good.
Reverse the psychology. Let them know they are good when they stop and sit down or lay down. Once you do this quite a few times without even going anywhere they get the message that when they pull they get yelled at, but if they back off and sit down they get rewarded. Eventually you can just whisper the NO command and they will stop.
But with that said... I hope you ended up with a higher intelligence Bulldog mix. The low class breeders are breeding all of the intelligence right out of Bulldogs on purpose. The breed is becoming universally dumber than a box of rocks. Some cannot even be trained at all. And they are becoming super unpredictable and dangerous.
I have had a few extremely intelligent and loyal friendly Bulldogs over the years. But now days it is really hard to find any... They are being bred to have no inhibitions, no guilt, no loyalty, and no trainable intelligence. They are breeding animals that can only be used for fighting or to let loose in a junkyard at night and put away during the day to keep people safe from them.
Unfortunately it is the trend... But being a mix should help with that issue... :)
I agree with you if you mean the kind of school you send the dog to, and get back trained. Do those even exist anymore?
The classes I'm familiar with have a trainer that teaches the owners how to work with their own dogs. That's a good thing for new owners and even those with some minimal experience teaching dogs basic commands.
You can always learn something!