Teaching Namie to hold something on a walk

Well it's been about a month and a half since Namie has made the move with me up to Toronto, and into a 15th floor apartment.  We are having a great time, and the more urban environment has provided us the opportunity for some additional training.  She's doing great behaving around other dogs and new people, and one of the more interesting challenges has been the elevator.  You don't think about it normally, but dogs, take up more space than people, because they stand on all fours, and even when they are sitting, they have their tail wagging around and in Namie's case, she likes to sniff around a little.  Most people like it, and pet her, but I have decided to try to train her to hold a ball or a bone in her mouth while we walk around so that she has something to further preoccupy herself while we walk around.  Since I'll be trying this for the first time, I figured I'd share my experience with everyone.  Today I googled "train dog hold something in mouth" and found an approach I've decided to try.  Here's what they say:

1.  Teach your dog "Take It".  Do this by placing a treat on the floor, and make them leave it until you say Take It.  Eventually the dog will know take it means to take the object.
2.  Replace the treat with a toy, giving the dog a treat when they take the toy.  You might need to use a squeeky toy initially to encourage the dog to take the toy.
3.  Hold onto the toy while the dog takes it, and say hold, then leave it or drop it (if ti knows this command, which Namie does).  Make the dog hold the toy longer and longer and hopefully this will eventually work for walks.

So far today, Namie and I did the following drills:

1.  Trained Take It using treats about 10 times
2.  Trained Take It using a toys about 5 times
3.  Trained Take It using another toy about 5 times.
4.  Trained Hold It using a jerky treat about 4 times. 
5.  Trained Hold It about 8 times with the squeeky toy. 

It isn't all quite clicking yet, but we'll see how it goes again tomorrow.

Have a great night everyone,
Nick and Namie