Teaching A Dog To Track/search/find

[RiverStar-Aura]

Hi all! I own a beagle x jack russell pup who's 13 months old and I was wondering if any of you know how I'd go about teaching him how to "find". His sniffer works well but I'm unsure on how to go about getting him to search out certain things. I guess I'd love to have an unofficial sniffer dog!

[Mrs Rusty Bucket]

The way our dog club teaches, is you get something that smells like you, and throw it out there, and then encourage the dog on lead to "find it" and loads of praise treats when he does.

So first time I tried this, I used a piece of wool material that had used to be a toy, and stuffed it down my sock that morning. And pulled it out for "find" in class. EH had no trouble finding that. And the fact that it was white not grass coloured helped.

Second time, I'd forgotten the material and just found a stick somewhere before class, and stuffed that inside my sock.

And lo, among many sticks, EH found the right one too. Including the time the instructor hid the stick and I had no idea where it was.

So you start with dog on lead, guide it towards the object to be found and then work up from there. Put the scented object with unscented objects that look the same etc. Make sure you know which is the right one though.

[RiverStar-Aura]

I'll definitely try that but just for clarification what do you define as being unscented? Once I touch something unscented won't my smell contaminate it? Or do you mean to find an object that would ooze my smell (say like a blanket I've slept on) and mix it in with other blankets (say the ones he sleeps on for example)?

I want it to be morning so I can give this a try. He's a really quick learner so I can't wait to start his training!

Thanks for the tips!

[Staranais]

Depends exactly what you want to teach him, I think.

Tracking or trailing - following a person's footsteps/scent trail?

Scent discrimination - going into a particular area & finding items you've dropped?

Or alerting on a particular scent, like a drug dog does?

I'd train all of these things differently.

[ozjen]

Depends on whether you want him to find things by air scenting or step tracking.

Air scenting - start by gettting him to find a favourite toy, leave it in the open to begin with and then as he gets use to finding it start to hide it abit more until eventually you totally hide it when he is not looking. This will get him using his nose more and getting familiar with the comand. This is a game I use to play with my girl especially in Winter if it was too wet to exercise. Once familiar with the process you could then get flavoured teabags hide one and use one to give the scent. This way the dog is finding something that has less of a meaning for him but has more meaning to you in that it has the scent you want him to find. Once comfortable start trying other things with different scents including your own ie socks one to scent the dog and one to hide. Laundered socks that you have kept on your person ie down a bra are better than smelly ones of the feet, even dogs don't like those.

Step tracking- you would be best to join your local tracking club to learn the correct way to do this especially if you want to go for tracking titles. There are several ways to teach it but probabaly abit too involved to go into here. You could also check on the internet or local libary. We are only in our first season of doing this so wouldn't want to give the wrong advise.

Keep training reasonably short as it is very tiring for dogs to do scent work and keep the dog well hydrated.

[W Sibs]

Charlie's favorite game is 'Search'. What I did with him was get a treat and 'hid' it with him seeing it where I hid it. Then I point at the treat and say 'Search'. We do this for a couple of time, then I started to put his treats where i can't see it and telling him to "Search" for it. Now we're at the stage where I make him stay in a sit/stay position in a different room and hide stuff around the house and then I release him and say 'Search'. He loves the game.

We've only just started using objects now (eg keys.. i'm always losing them)

[yap]

Depends on whether you want him to find things by air scenting or step tracking.

Air scenting - start by gettting him to find a favourite toy, leave it in the open to begin with and then as he gets use to finding it start to hide it abit more until eventually you totally hide it when he is not looking. This will get him using his nose more and getting familiar with the comand. This is a game I use to play with my girl especially in Winter if it was too wet to exercise. Once familiar with the process you could then get flavoured teabags hide one and use one to give the scent. This way the dog is finding something that has less of a meaning for him but has more meaning to you in that it has the scent you want him to find. Once comfortable start trying other things with different scents including your own ie socks one to scent the dog and one to hide. Laundered socks that you have kept on your person ie down a bra are better than smelly ones of the feet, even dogs don't like those.

Step tracking- you would be best to join your local tracking club to learn the correct way to do this especially if you want to go for tracking titles. There are several ways to teach it but probabaly abit too involved to go into here. You could also check on the internet or local libary. We are only in our first season of doing this so wouldn't want to give the wrong advise.

Keep training reasonably short as it is very tiring for dogs to do scent work and keep the dog well hydrated.

I,d be carefull of the tea bags, I read tea bags are toxic to dogs! But just to be sure look it up on the net.