How to safely and calmly open a dogs mouth?

[shivvy]

My pup and I are doing our Good Citizen Award and part of the exam is to be able to examine your dog. She is fine with me looking at her eyes, ears, feet etc but she doesn't enjoy me trying to open her mouth. I don't want her to fret about it but I know that if I get anxious about it, she will pick up on my negative vibes.

At the minute I am putting my hand over the top of her muzzle and putting one finger and thumb onto the gap behind her canine teeth (it feels as if there is a gap there). She opens her mouth a bit but she doesn't seem to like it and struggles to pull away. I give her a treat after she opens her mouth to try and encourage her but it isn't getting any easier.
Can anyone help to make it a less stressful situation for both of us please?
Thanks

[woofgang]

well I can tell you how we did it, a two pronged approach. The first is to not entirely discourage puppy mouth play but teach them to do it gently. The usual ways have worked for us, the first is to yelp when it hurts and then withdraw from play, same as other dogs would and the second is to gently tickle the roof of the mouth while saying "be gentle" or similar. We are now at a state where at seven months both pups will hold my fingers gently in play or as they walk next to me. If my fingers were eggs, they wouldn't be cracked.
So now human fingers in mouth is play and a privelege not anything to worry about.
The next thing is to wait until the dog is sleepy and cuddled up next to (or on!) you and gently stroke and play with the lips using the mouth check word you have decided on. Don't make a big deal of it, just stroke the lip and mouth area as you would anywhere else.
Once you have those two actions sorted. you can gently open the mouth again when the dog is sleepy. Like us, a dog's jaw hinges downward. If you ask a dog to open its mouth with your hand over its muzzle, you are either asking it to raise its head backwards or you have to push down on the jaw to get it to move.
Put your hand under the chin and find that same gap in the gums and gently press. At first you may only get a millemetre of opening, leave it at that, don't go wild with the praise, you want the dog sleepy and relaxed.
next step is to use the mouth checking command during mouth play when pup has his mouth open and wants to mouth your hand, again have your hand under his jaw and don't press down, just curl you fingers up and round so they go in his mouth. Use your mouth examination command and then go on with the play.

[woofgang]

part 2
From experience, its a good idea to get your dog used to being touched all over when he is sleepy and settled next to you. I use this cuddle time to check for thorns, ticks lumps and bumps etc without it being a big deal. I can of course now touch them all over whenever I need to but the starting place of doing it with a sleepy relaxed dog is a no big deal way to begin

Do keep in mind also that if pup is teething, his mouth may be tender..imagine someone wanting to poke around in your mouth when its sore!

[lankeela]

Sounds like you are doing okay, and the GC blurb does allow for 'mild avoidance'. In the bronze when you have to examine the dog yourself, in the silver and gold the examiner does it, and they are obviously used to doing this, so will probably have done it before your dog realises.

[funnytroll]

kick it in the cohones?

Hope this helpps

[lankeela]

Notfunnytroll - you could at least spell it right - the word is cojones, but as you cannot even spell help correctly I suppose we should not be surprised.

[shivvy]

Great answer woofgang - thankyou. I got Bella from a rescue centre 6 months ago and she is approx 10 or 11 months old now. I have already talked her out of (!) mouth play so unfortunately I wouldn't be able to use all of the technique that you have described. Have you got any other methods that you may have used on older dogs?
I do use the time when she is cuddled up to have a poke at her other bits and bobs to have a check and remove the inevitable thorns, weeds, slugs (yes, slugs!) attached to her undercarriage. I will start touching her mouth more often to see if that helps.

Lankeela - It is the bronze that I am doing so I will have to do the deadly deed!

Funnytroll - I knew that someone would give that somewhat obvious answer so congratulations on being unimaginative!

[woofgang]

okay well you may have some extra work to do to get her more confident, obvioulsy you don't know what happened to her before she got lucky and came to you. You might try offering her a super treat and using the mouth open command as she opens her mouth to take it. proceeding to holding her jaw gently with one hand and offering the treat with the other while using the command, then gradually adding some pressure on her lower lip so she associates it with getting the yummy.

I absolutely get why the GC award allows for some avoidance in bronze, but IMHO I still wouldn't force it (I know you won't) as if the dog is not confident, one can be building up trouble for later.

If its any comfort, neither of our dogs got their puppy GC...a combination of he fact that they are a late developing breed and DH had a chest infection so we missed 3 of the six classes as he was in no state to go or to take care of a puppy if I took one to class.