Hi all! First off, Vivi is doing great! He is the best dog I could have hoped for.
Lately, I've been teaching him his basic commands so he'll be ready when we take the beginner obedience class later on. He already learned sit and down so far, and I'll be teaching stay, come, drop it, leave it, and some others just for fun.
However, I noticed an odd behavior he shows when I first start training with a new command. If I give him a command he doesn't quite know yet, he looks a little nervous and tries to turn and walk away as soon as the command is given, even if I have a great treat (tiny piece of cheese!) in my hand. He did this with sit at first, and still does it a little with down since it's the newest command. I use a quiet, calm voice with clear pronunciation to give the command and accompany it with a hand sign (point up for sit, point down for down). Anyway, I'm just wondering what might have caused this odd behavior. Could his previous owners have been too hard on him while trying to train him?