What's the game?
We are teaching our dogs to find their treats under other exciting things. This gets them using their nose and making choices. The more we get that brain and nose working the better the mental stimulation and problem solving skills we develop.
Is it of any use in the real world?
This is such a useful game if you choose to extend it later. Particularly, we can use it to teach self control, ask first before you go grab something, find my keys (or similar) and get your dog nice and tired so they get more restful sleep.
What do we need?
This is a very easy and fun game for your dog and takes next to no setup or effort.
Muffin Tray
Use one or two trays depending on your dog.
Balls/Toys
Tasty Treats
If your dog is driven by their own food, use that. If not we can use some simple treats, whether they are shop bought treats or just small cut up pieces of safe food such as chicken, turkey, carrots, cucumber or courgette. Break up into tiny pieces, about 0.5cm on any side.
How to get started
We are not going to worry about a sit-stay to start just yet, let's just get your dog into the game itself.
Fill the tray
Up high on the kitchen counter, put treats/food into each of the muffin tray slots.
Add the toys
Once you have a piece of food in each spot, add a toy on top of the food into each spot.
Give to your dog
Say 'find it' and place the full tray down on the ground. If your dog isn't sure what to do, point and tap at some of the toys to get their noses started.
End the search
For safety we always end a search, when your dog has found all the food and is done searching say 'all done' or similar to let them know that search is done.
Every time they find a piece of food, praise them for it.
Build it up
We can build up the game to help us build in some cue words and useful training tools.
- Once the tray is filled start to lower it down to the ground (don't say anything)
- If your dog moves towards the tray say 'oops' (not 'ah ah') and lift the tray back up high. As soon as your dog stops moving say 'good' and start to lower again
- Continue until your dog chooses to stay still as you lower to the ground
- As soon as you are happy say 'find it' and send them to play
Note if you are working with a teenager or very excitable dog, leave off this step for now. We do not want to build any frustration. And once they are not moving toward the tray bring it down immediately, don't wait to see what they do next.
- Repeat the self control step from above
- Once the tray is on the ground wait for one second, if your dog hasn't moved release with a 'find it'. If they do, lift the tray again as in the previous section
- Build up to ten seconds slowly but start with lots of successes of one, two and four seconds before making it too hard
- Place the tray on the ground as above when you have build up a few seconds
- Wait for your dog to look up at you, as soon as they do say 'yes' and 'find it' sending them to go get it
- If they are not looking up at you, the first few goes you can cheat with a movement, make a small noise, etc. This brings their eye up so you can catch what they are supposed to do.