After visiting the vet in early 2021 (for Fibi-dog’s annual health check), I realised she and I hadn’t worked on an open mouth behaviour together! This, paired with the fact that many of our ATA members at the time were also working on the same behaviour, got me excited to give it a go. Here are the notes from our sessions from back then, where you can see how we worked on this behaviour.
Video one – February 19th 2021
One thing I really liked to do anytime I started training anything new was to just jump in and see where we were at. I called this a baseline session. Consequently, without giving it too much thought, I decided to see if I could get Fibi to target her top lip to my finger! See below ⬇️
Video two – March 07th 2021
When I shared this training with the amazing dog trainer Sarah Owings, one of the challenges she pointed out to me was that part of Fibi’s target behaviour was a very tightly closed mouth. So, it seemed a different approach might be beneficial! We tried numerous different things, including thinking about times when Fibi offered an open mouth behaviour that we might be able to capture. One such time was when we were playing – Fibi would open her mouth and chase my hand!
Consequently, I started to capture this behaviour (with a click and some food) and then incorporated the top lip target into it… see the beginnings of this here ⬇️
Video three – March 16th 2021
I started to notice that after feeding, Fibi would often chomp her lips a bit. I decided to therefore add some food tosses in to give her more time to fully consume her Kibble. One other thing I really liked about this approach was that it also allowed me to gather more data and consequently hypothesise how Fibi was feeling about everything. I.e. a quick latency to get back to the station could suggest she was enjoying the training… however if that latency increased (and at times it did) it might suggest she was not enjoying it as much.
I also added a foot stool to bring Fibi more up to my eye level.
Video four – March 23rd 2021
One thing I really struggled with in this training was my timing and capturing a certain sized gape as well as a still mouth for duration.
I was a big fan of using antecedent arrangements in ways that help measure certain components of what we do – so I purchased a compass (used for drawing circles) and modified it. I was hoping this might help me ensure I was clicking the same gape every time (approximating wider and wider) by having something more visual to click, i.e. chin on the bottom target/part of the compass.
Note: the compass had measurements on the side as well – so I knew what specific gape size we were up to! I also attached a paper clip to the bottom for the chin target and cut off the sharp point of the compass with a pair of bolt cutters.
Video five – April 06th 2021
However, with the above strategy, I found that I had some challenges holding the compass in a way that worked for both Fibi and me. Therefore, it was back to the drawing board – which ended up with me giving the below (alternative) approach a try to see where it might take us ⬇️:
A – I presented my thumb
B – Fibi targeted her top lip
C – I brought up my finger to her bottom teeth
A – I brought up my finger to her bottom teeth
B – Fibi opened her mouth
C – I moved my finger with her mouth
A – I moved my finger with her mouth
B – Fibi opened her mouth more
C – I moved my finger with her mouth
Note: To the absolute best of my ability, I was trying not to put pressure on her bottom teeth. I endeavoured to wait for her to move her mouth and move my fingers with it. Although I found unintentional pressure was really challenging to avoid, and once again I was mechanically challenged to implement the strategy with the desired mechanics.
Video six – April 13th 2021
Up until this point, I had been failing-forward with the timing of my click with Fibi’s mouth at a consistent gape. Additionally (as mentioned above), I had been struggling with unintentionally putting pressure on Fibi’s mouth parts to get this behaviour!
So next, I tried using a 15mm cut piece of ice block stick between my fingers (see end of video for picture). This ⬇️ meant I could apply pressure with both fingers down on the ice block stick and my fingers wouldn’t therefore move or put pressure downwards on Fibi’s bottom lip (which I had unintentionally been doing)!
Video seven – April 15th 2021
We started getting great success with the above strategy, and so then started to push the duration up past 2-3 seconds ⬇️
Video eight – April 22nd 2021
We then shifted to me using a 20cm piece of ice block stick and added in a torch! We were all ready to start moving this behaviour to new locations and adding in some more distractions before taking it to the vet’s office! Woo Hoo!
And we did then take it the vet office which you can see in this video HERE
Well there you have it – that was our 2021 journey to an open mouth behaviour for vet exams!
What about you? Is an open mouth behaviour something you have trained? I would love to hear about your journey and how you trained it with your learner/s! You can let us know by leaving a comment below! We look forward to hearing from you.