| Leon...
It's not necessarily dominance that he's displaying, but rather a lack of "proofing" or generalizing the behavior... He knows "sit" in certain circumstances, but it is not generally applied to every situation.... does that make sense?
Do you possess a toy that is of high value to Milo? If so, perhaps you could use that as a reward for action well executed... and switch between food and toy....
Judi is correct that food should be an intermittant reward... As Milo performs tasks asked of him, give him food rewards at longer intervals... for instance, when you first give him the sit command, you give reward immediately.. as he becomes more responsive to your request, hold off on the reward just long enough for him to be successful with the command, and so on... (i.e. 3 seconds, 10 seconds, 20 seconds and so on.... then, change it up..) This is where a good instructor is really needed, so they can coach YOUR handling skills.
You only want to give JUST enough reward to accomplish the behavior requested.
Keep your homework short and sweet... puppies have VERY short attention spans... It's better to have 3 five minute sessions in a day, than one 15 minute session in which Milo loses interest... ALWAYS end on a good note...
Hope this helps...
Cheers,
Elisabeth  |