Kind of a stupid question- teaching a dog to show teeth on command?

I%26#039;ve never really trained a dog to perform tricks outside of basic obedience.I just recently started training my Papillon, Louie to do some tricks.





There is one %26quot;trick%26quot; that has always fascinated me- training a dog to show his teeth on command. We are planning on getting a Golden Retriever for our next dog and I would like to attempt that trick. However, everything I%26#039;ve read about training a dog to show teeth says that you have to catch your dog bearing his teeth on his own and reinforce it. Goldens are very mild mannered so I neither expect the dog to naturally bear his teeth, nor am I a fan of reinforcing evenly a mildly aggressive behavior.





Is there any other way to go about it or should I just forget about it?





I don%26#039;t have any use for the trick, other than the satisfaction of being able to achieve it.

Kind of a stupid question- teaching a dog to show teeth on command?
You might be able to work with it if you manage to rile the dog up in playing. My golden likes to growl and bare her teeth when she%26#039;s playing tug-o-war with me, even though she%26#039;s as mild-mannered as anything otherwise. Then you aren%26#039;t really reinforcing any actual aggression.
Reply:Try tickling the dog%26#039;s front teeth until it pulls it%26#039;s lips back to get them away from your fingers.
Reply:Well I find just smiling at 2 of my Chihuahua%26#039;s gets them to smile back at me. Now I can just use their name and tell them to smile and they give me a huge smile with tail wagging full of excitment.
Reply:I think reinforcing any dogs aggressive behavior is leading to something bad.





Some dogs %26quot;smile%26quot; but nothing agressive what so ever.





If you reinforce your dogs %26quot;bearing his teeth%26quot; your inforcing that you want him to be aggressive.





If you have a dog that natrually lifts his lip in a NON aggressive way then praise him and tell him good smile.
Reply:Why does it have to be an act of aggression?





You should be able to get him to peel back his gums by putting your fingers on either side of his mouth - show dogs must do this every time they go in the ring so the judge can check their bite.
Reply:We had a collie who would do this, and growl at the same time - she was taught how to do it by (GENTLY!!) tugging one whisker, she would lift that lip in response - and it was a game to her, by the way, the teaching of the command - GROWL - was just a by product of the game.





It can backfire though - there were a couple of times, later in life, when given the command to Growl she would forget why she started and find herself unable to stop... So on balance, maybe %26#039;smile%26#039; would have been a better command..
Reply:I%26#039;m not sure how you would go about training that, but every Golden I%26#039;ve ever known (Like my Aussies) does the %26quot;Golden Grin%26quot; (We call it the Aussie Grin!). Where if they%26#039;re happy, or trying to be %26quot;cute%26quot;, they%26#039;ll bare their teeth and it looks like they%26#039;re smiling.
Reply:Some dogs show their teeth naturally in a submissive smile and you would be able to Mark that with clicker training. The only way I can think to get a dog to somewhat smile is put p-nut butter on his teeth and when he pushes around with his tongue click that. But you have to teach a dog what the clicker means first. So unless you have a natural smiler I would forget this trick, personally.
Reply:My female Staffordshire Bull Terrier started doing this when I would come home, accompanyied by a wiggle and a chirp. She is a strange one, but since I show dogs, and her I started putting %26quot;smile%26quot; with the action. She doesn%26#039;t always do it on key, but she does know what I want and it is so cute!!! She curls up her top lip and grins a gleeming white smile! I love it. It doesn%26#039;t look like a snarl at all!
Reply:When I was very young our family has a Dalmation. She was wonderful and completely devored to my mom. Whenever my mom came home our dog would %26quot;smile%26quot;. Which was her showing her teeth. She would get so excited to see my mom she would litterally look like she was smiling. I have heard of other dogs doing this but I dont know how common it is. You do not want to encourage aggression in your dog to get him/her to show her teeth. Try making her very happy instead. Good Luck.
Reply:There is one use for this trick Cleaning the teeth.


Dogs often show their teeth as a threat but with training it should not be a threat when the trick is learned, the dog should not be ready to become aggressive. so you start by allowing just a curl of the lip and reinforcing that and finally after alot of time and patience the dog will show its teeth and not be showing any other signs of aggression. A touch of the lip may make it rise, or putting peanut butter on the teeth, just try a few Ideas other than getting it aggressive. if you hav nay fears about this trick then do not try it.


As always enlist professional help before it is to late.
Reply:Well i have trained my dog ( pembroke welcsh corgi ) to do this also. What you can do is find a treat or a yummy food that he REALLY likes, then get him to sit. after that raise up the treat or food and say a command ( maybe say teeth or something ) he should learn to stay sitting and show his teeth. With patience and LOTS of practice he should do it on command. Hope i helped.
Reply:I actually attempted this with a swab of peanut butter on my dog%26#039;s upper gums.


Then as my dog got larger, his lips got progressively bigger...and it didn%26#039;t work anymore, although I suspect it would have worked if I didn%26#039;t have a Dane.





That might be another way to try...
Reply:I actually have one dog who I trained to do this. It is very cute!


She is an aussie/huskie mix.


The way I did it was to pull her lips back from her teeth, show all my teeth at the same time and say %26quot;Smile for mom%26quot;. It took about a week of doing this and now she just does it on command, but not unless I bare my teeth as well!
Reply:If the dog will naturally %26#039;grin%26#039; either in a situation or with tickling, then you can associate a cue with it and they can do it. I have known a number of dogs that have learned to do this. I knew a dog too that would do %26#039;big lick%26#039; which is where he would take and lick his entire face from one side to the other on command :) If the dog doesn%26#039;t naturally grin or won%26#039;t grin on a side with tickling, I would think it would be difficult. My girl will smile with a tickle on either side but I never bothered with that trick. She doesn%26#039;t have any issue with her mouth being examined anyway as she has had it done all her life in the breed ring since they count Doberman teeth. There are a lot more useful things to teach.



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