opinions on strange behaviour

Hello, this may be a long one sorry.   Sully turned 2 in October and we have had him since 8 weeks.
He is a pleasure, never destroyed anything, toilet trained in 2 weeks minus the odd accident, knew basic commands and fitted into our lives very quickly. He is the smartest dog we’ve ever had having had them all our lives, he understands a massive amount of words and commands. his newest and most helpful being be opens and closes door the door for himself when he wants to get out the bedroom at night.

The dilemma with Sully is his lead walking only TO the field. And anxiety out the house - inside he is the dream dog.

Problem one: Walking to the field
He is very good once at the field, he could play ball for a long time and ignores anything around him completely.  But he pulls constantly to get to the field… we have tried all the usual suggestions.
If we drop the lead when he’s pulling though, he doesn’t run off, he stops and waits for you to pick his lead up- frustrating.    On the way back from the walk he is perfect on a very slack lead !! and listens when you tell him to wait.   So we know he knows exactly what we’re saying.

Problem two:
When at a relatives house or a cafe for example he just cries like he wants to go home, he seems like an anxious wreck and can’t self soothe himself. If you are touching him / giving him attention he is fine, otherwise constant crying.
He is chatty to us in the house and is very affectionate. But it just seems like he wants to go home. — He is never like this on walks, he’s perfect in the car, and is easily settled if we’re staying overnight,

Sully has been socialised since day one and has never had an altercation with a person or animal. He doesn’t like cats and just screams at them but other then that fine. He doesn’t care for strangers dogs, they come up to him and he just looks at us and waits for them to pass by- it’s bizarre to be honest. Although he loves all our relatives dogs and understands the older ones will chill with him but he can play with the younger dogs, as he knows to be gentle with babies.
He has truly been socialised and exercised very well since forever so these things being such a big issue this far gone with this much time and effort into his behaviour and training.

I just don’t understand, and I’ve looked at his forum a lot and thought maybe this could give me some insight. So sorry for the long post, if anyone takes the time to get this far truly thank you for even gaining an insight into our situation.
Thanks, this forum is great.
Wouldn’t be without our staffs

Hi & welcome.

Firstly, he is just doing what a dog does - he's young, he's energetic, he's eager. He loves the park/field so he NEEDS to get there. I think a way forward would be to go another route (if you can) or just totally ignore the park/field every other day for example. Keep him guessing. He ISN'T being bad, he's being a dog!

The second problem is typical staff! He's not doing anything, he's not the centre of attention so he reminds you he's there! My old boy, Bandit, was exactly the same & we used to just try & ignore - difficult with the whining and shaking, but eventually he would lay down and sulk!

Staffords are very much people orientated and need affirmation from their owners (or anyone passing by!). It's nothing you've done but you may need to try the old 'ignore' routine!

It appears that this is typical Staffy behaviour as mine does exactly the same as yours at 11 yrs old, bar the pulling on the lead.
The other day I was in the barbers and she was sat near the seats and she created up a fuss because she wasn't the centre of attention. A chap walked in, sat near her and gave her attention and, like yours, she was quiet.
She is better than she used to be and that was just by her getting used to being 'ignored' so to speak. It just took a lot of time and patience and even then it doesn't work all the time.

As for the pulling, that's excitement and a learned behaviour as that's how they have learnt to go forward to get where they want to go. As mentioned try going a different way or going elsewhere and see if that helps. Alternatively some training to not pull wouldn't hurt either.