Memberbeen working with Chewie for EVAH to get this done lol. Now, when I take out the camera and say “smile chew chew!” I get this:
For reference here he is sans smile:
It’s true, I have a boring life LOL
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MemberAww he looks a bit like my parents’ dog, except their dog has a permanent “smile” since his underbite is so serious.
MemberThat is so cute! The smile reminds me of the kind that kids have to force because their mom just wants one more picture!
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MemberSo cute! Any advice for how to teach that. I would love to teach my pup to smile.
P.S. Is Chewy a shih tzu? I have a shih tzu/pekingese mix.
MemberHaha! I love it, very cute!
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MemberHa ha – that is too funny!
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Member@flutterbi: he is a shih-tzu! what we did to train him took 3 months. Shih-Tzu’s LOVE to please their human but are easily bored so we didn’t do it daily lest he might get frustrated. Chewie will pretty much do anything for Vitakraft peanut butter drops so we saved them exclusively for this trick.
We took out a doggy toothbrush and said “Smile Mister!” and then went into his mouth and gave it a good scrub. To get him to respond to the command we would say the phrase and then lift his lips. We then cooed and praised him for that simple step which made him start doing it as soon as we got the toothbrush out lol. Then, we started using the command sans toothbrush and giving him a Vitakraft if he did it. The kids were super fond of this trick so they were doing it pretty often. Next, we used the command and praised him tremendously when he did it. He only did it about 50% of the time because he figured “no treat no show.” So I conditioned him to do it, when the camera was at my eyes, which would result in a Vitakraft. So he will now smile if the camera comes out and sit pretty in anticipation of a treat. Sucks for him if I get the camera out to photo the kids HAHA
I don’t know if I explained it very well lol. Only lots of pain meds and my mind if foggy.
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MemberYay! Congrats! I’ve been working with Ozzy forever to get him to smile. How’d you do it?
ETA – I guess should have read your post, MY BAD. Ozzy LOVES to have his teeth brushed, maybe I’ll start working something out that like that.
Sounds like you’ve read a bit into psychology with your conditioning and the “bell-ringing-drooling effect” 🙂
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