Things you need:

• Half the dog’s food ratio for one meal, dry dog food is the best here. (I assume you feed it twice a day)

• Plastic bag for the dog food

• Lead + collar

• Dog

• Patience

If you never have played “find” with your dog, I suggest you to start with this simple practice.

You go out in the garden, or on a field if you haven’t got a garden. There you make your dog sit next to you, maybe tie it in the fence or a tree if it is very eager and not obedience trained. You have to act with calm movements. You take a handful of your dry dog food and show it to the dog, the dog must be hungry; the best time to do this is just before his ordinary mealtime. When the dog knows you have food in the hand, you take 3-4 steps away from him; pay no attention to him at all. You turn towards him, and drop a treat on the lawn. This is something you continue to do until all the dog food in your hand is gone (mind you, you will have more in the bag).

When you have dropped the food in the grass, you go back to your dog and hold its collar, take the lead off and just say, “find”. (If you are on a field, you might want to attach him to a long lead (20-30 feet) then you stay still and let him go searching. You will not interrupt him here; it is the dog that has to do the work. When you have put the food out in the grass and let him have it, you have also given him permission to eat it, so it is his. Even if you know when he has eaten all of the food (You might have counted them when you dropped them down and counted how many the dog has found) you must not call him back. It is of big importance here that he has to find out by himself that they are all gone; otherwise he won’t become determined and continue the work when it gets hard. He will instead turn to you and expect you to solve his problems for him.

When he has realised that they are all gone, and he returns to you, you will stroke him calmly and say “good boy/girl”. If he is panting, you have to quit here and go home and feed him the rest of his portion with the leftovers in the bag, when it is his ordinary mealtime.

If he is still on his toes, wanting to work, repeat the procedure.  Put him on lead, leave him and spread another fistful of food in the grass. Let him go there with the command “find” or “Hoover” or whichever you choose. Remember to let him finish it off by himself to become secure and determined in his work.  It is easy to tell him “they are all gone” or similar but that will take away his determination to finish a job and that is not good in the further education to become a tracking dog.

When he is really good at this, you can increase the amount of food given to his entire portion for one meal, what you have done then is given him the meaning with his life, to use the nose to search for his food, and taken charge of the “hunt” as it is you who put the food out there in fistfuls at the time, and let him off lead with a command.

The importance in this is to train this when he is hungry, and use small amounts to start with so you can be sure that all is gone, there should never be anything left in the grass as that will draw rats or mice, maybe even foxes to your garden. Increase the amount slowly.

This is an exercise that you can do with your dog daily, and it will keep him mentally stimulated.

Have fun and feel free to email any question about this procedure!