Teaching your dog to ‘find it’ is a useful skill for your dog to know. We use ‘find it’ to enrich your dogs day, help them relax, provide mental stimulation and more!
The ‘find it’ skill is where they can find a treat you have tossed on the ground - simple right?
This skill benefits dogs because:
- Sniffing and solving puzzles like finding a treat is enriching for them and bring happy hormones into their brains. Happy dogs are calm dogs!
- It is great stimulation and bonding for a dog owner and pooch - incredible bonding.
- It strengthens your training and bond - your dog can learn and listen more often
- Can be used to channel their energy - instead of doing something unwanted they could sniff out a treat!
How to teach ‘find it’
1. Toss a treat few metres away and cue ‘find it’ mark the behaviour ‘yes’
2. Continuing increasing the distance that your dog needs to find the treat
3. Once your dog begins to understand the exercise we can cue ‘find it’ toss several treats to increase the difficulty, and mark the behaviour when they find the treats
4. Once your dog becomes really good at step 3 we can work on scavenger hunts and treasure finds in the backyard or around the house- we can cue them to ‘find it’ and they should go scavenging for the treats
Tips:
- Repetition - try this daily on dog walks
- High value treats - think stink, smelly, soft like cheeses & meats
- Keep reinforcing with your marker word ‘Yes’
- Have fun with it!
