We usually feed him his meals by hand and use globs of stinky food to get him used to being touched and patted. It took a long time to teach him "SIT" because at first he was too nervous to focus on the food and kept running away when the command was given.
You could say it in any tone of voice, he just did not understand the concept of a command. He also hated it when we tried to gently push his bottom down and would jump away scared and run back to his crate.
This stumped us for a while. How could we make him focus on the food hand without fear? We solved the problem by smearing smelly wet dog food all over my left hand and using that hand to try to push his bottom down (we had to wash him afterwards). My right hand would hold food in front of his face. We repeated this several times. With each repetition his panic and attempt to hide would become more half hearted as his hunger got the better of him.
Soon he learned that the left hand was not scary and was actually lickable and delicious. When I washed the smelly goop off my left hand, he began ignoring it and started focusing on my right hand. I used my left hand to tap his bottom, giving the "SIT" command and rewarding him with food when he sat. He only needed a slight touch from my left hand to remember what he was supposed to do. From that point it took about 5 minutes before he could sit on command, always with a reward. We told him he was clever, and he was very pleased with himself.
He is a surprisingly smart dog, he learns quickly but is very difficult to motivate because of his fear of new and unknown situations. Every day he gets a little bit braver and easier to handle. We are learning a lot from him, he forces us to think outside the box with every interaction.
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