In the beginning, when teaching new commands, execute with both a hand gesture and a vocal command. Treating everytime it's executed EXACTLY as you desire. After they get it good, backing off on the Treat and ALWAYS with Tons of Praise in a High Pitched praised-voice. Then once they get real good and you don't have to treat anymore... do just hand gestures, and treat again when execution is EXACTLY as desired. Then just voice. Same way. Then... later on when giving hand gesture or vocal commands add-in a specific head/facial nod type of command that you want them to also recognize as the command for that action. Before long you can get then to execute a whole buncha different things using just slightly different head nods. It's cool!
Also... myself... I got tired of catching all these side-eye'd glances from other humans when at the dog park from when I needed to talk with my dogs in the emphatic gruff reprimand tone. So instead... what I started doing is integrating the world "Please" into the commands. So if I end a command execution sentence with "Please" (with the right tone to it) uh-oh... my girls know daddy is not happy and that they'd better get with it. And that way... I don't have to be talking all gruff with them to impose dominance and catch all that side-eye flack from Nosey butt-insky people.
In the beginning when you teach 'em a new trick and you've got Treats involved... they'll just bust out into every trick they know in their repertoire. You gotta say back "No, I didn't say to do all that. ... Sit, Please. Gooood Sit!... Ready?.....<NewCommand!>. And sometimes with more complex multi-actions you need to teach it to them in broken-down piece-parts.
And then... after they've learned 'em all pretty good, they'll start trying to short-change you on their execution. Such as when returning the ball from a fetch , not actually putting it back in your hand. That's when I take another step backwards and say "No.... GIVE! <Shaking the extended hand with palm upward facing) Maybe even repeat the command twice in a row rapidly to express being emphatic, like you want it done now. "GIVE! GIVE!".
And each and everytime they execute they way you wanted, you gotta make the biggest deal about it! "Goood <NameOfCommand>! Goood <NameOfCommand>!!! Goood Girl!!!" (Lots of pets and rubs and scratches). Before long it's not about the Treat anymore. It becomes about receiving all that lovin' you shower'em with when they execute right!
And whenever you have a time period where they start being little shits and being bad about not fully executing. Then it's time to put them back on the 6ft lead and do the basics. The basics are taking 'em for walks on 6ft lead and making sure they don't pull, and that when they get to a curb and you say "Sit" they sit that butt down and they don't lift it up off the concrete until YOU say "OK Let's Go...."
That reinforcing your position of dominance with the basics helps soo much in making their off-leash training commands execute better!
