the "open" command

[loriam]

athena is... growing up. she still gets into things she's not supposed to sometimes though. her jaws are stronger than ever and that means it's harder to pry them open and retrieve inappropriate noms and chews.

so i thought it'd be neat to try training her to let me take things out of her mouth. we were so persistent with the "sit" command and it was the first one we worked on and now she sits quietly whenever she hears a noise, sees children running off in the distance, etc. she just stops and sits, it's eeever so lovely. so i thought persistence would work with this too.

i looked up a bit on the net about it but there are different ways to approach it. we started with holding a treat in front of her and when she opens her mouth we say open and give it to her. it's gotten to the point where if we say "open" she opens her mouth ever so slightly. which is AWESOME.

but i don't really know where i should go from there. i'm a bit hesitant of putting my hands in her mouth and then treating her afterwords for obvious reasons. maybe the slightly opened mouth will have to work. idk.

it's not a very common command. i was just wondering if anyone else has done this training and how you went about it, how it's working out. it's a pretty nifty trick.

[persephona]

What about teaching her drop it as well? I know that this doesn't really answer your question, but it's a good alternative to get rid of inappropriate stuff she's chewing on.

I also think you could practice holding her jaw with your hand and treating her and generally getting her used to you handling her mouth. If you want her to allow you to get your hands into her mouth, there isn't really other way to go around.