Keyword Research - Advice From Experts Needed

Hi guys,
Ive set aside today to do some keyword research, and I feel as though I have a reasonable handle on this, however I cant help but feel that Im missing something. I would like to ask the more advanced marketers for some advice on how I can improve my current strategy in the hope of finding better keywords/phrases. In particular, long tail keywords with low competition. To clarify, these keywords will all be used within articles published both on my site, as well as on various article directories.

Ok, heres what I am currently doing, please provide thoughts and opinions.

I open up two instances of the Google keyword tool. I perform a keyword search using the root keyword. For this example Ill use "dog training" as an example.

So in Google keyword window one I type "dog training" - all countries and territories, and sort the results by Global DESC. The results at this point are BROAD.

I then skip the first two or so keywords because obviously the competition will be too high, and move down to say the third or fourth keyword. In this example it would be "dog obedience training". I take this keyword, copy it and paste it into the secondary Google keyword tool window again, all countries and territories, sorted by Global DESC, but with EXACT results showing.

I then take these keywords one at a time, and paste them into Googles search, using the following...

allintitle:dog obedience training

I know by my results that this particular keyphrase pulls 74,000 searches per month, and has 386,000 competing sites for this particular keyphrase. Due to the high numbers, I leave it and move on to the next keyword (second window) repeating this process until Im down to keywords that pull about 1,000. Once Im down to those numbers, I move back to the first window and grab the next keyword/phrase and repeat the process.

Hope Im not confusing you too much!

Basically anything that comes in with decent figures, I enter into a spreadsheet, which I then pass onto my writer.

Now my question is this...

How can I improve on this method? Is there anything further that I should be doing? What further advice could more experienced marketers give me? Am I on the right path?

Thanks!