Showing mouth and teeth

[bigq1999]

What is the best way to get a puppy use to having his mouth and teeth shown? He will let me see them but he wiggles way to much. It will take 5 min to something that should take a few seconds. Thanks!

[Judi W]

Well, you don't try for the whole thing at the beginning. Start with showing the bite and sides. Quickly done. Also start teaching the pup to stand and stand still for bait. You can then marry the two. Don't move on to opening the whole mouth to look at the back molars until he understands and is comfortable with the bite/side look. Take your time teaching this because once you set it up as a fight you'll have a heck of a time having a dog that looks good and shows its mouth at the same time.

[work-n-show]

In addition to what Judi said, understand that much of the struggles involves with showing teeth is derived from the dog not wanting to have its head controlled.

You can work on this too by using similar methods. Control the head and reward. If you do that before you try with the bite, you won't be fighting two battles at once.