In Tkinter how do i remove focus from a widget?

If the dummy widget is Canvas then c.focus() will not work.

use c.focus_set() or c.tk.call('focus',c) to first focus on the canvas window itself.

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That's because

c.focus()

... returns the id for the item that currently has the focus, or an empty string if no item has the focus. Reference

c.focus(id_) will focus on the item having id id_ within the canvas.

c.focus("") will remove the focus from any item in the canvas.

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Hence (within some callback)

c.config(highlightthickness = 0) # to remove the highlight border on focus
c.foucs_set()
c.focus("") # just to be sure

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The reason c.focus() functions differently is that within Tcl/Tk's Commands there's the "Primary" Command focus

as well as the Canvas-specific Widget Command focus

That's not an issue within the Tcl/Tk syntax but in the tkinter module c.focus() will call the underlying canvas-specific foucs.

From tkinter.py within the Canvas class Line 2549

def focus(self, *args):
        """Set focus to the first item specified in ARGS."""
        return self.tk.call((self._w, 'focus') + args)

• Set focus to another widget to remove focus from the target widget is a good idea. There are two methods for this: w.focus_set() and w.focus_force(). However, method w.focus_force() is impolite. It's better to wait for the window manager to give you the focus. Setting focus to parent widget or to the root window removes focus from the target widget.
• Some widgets have takefocus option. Set takefocus to 0 to take your widget out of focus traversal (when user hits <Tab> key).

You can focus to another dummy widget.

Edit

from Tkinter import *

def callback():
    print master.focus()

master = Tk()
e = Entry(master)
e.pack()
e.focus()
b = Button(master, text="get", width=10, command=callback)
b.pack()

master.mainloop()

Focusing on a non-'focusable' widget will remove focus from another widget.