How To Teach Your Dog To Look For Something

We all like our dogs to know how to do special things like pirouettes, bring us the newspaper or search for something. Regarding the latter activity, although the action of seeking is something innate in animals, it is not easy to teach a dog to look for exactly what we want and have it brought to us.

It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible either. In this article we will give you some tips to awaken this instinct that may have fallen asleep.

How to arouse research instinct in a dog

Teaching our dog to look for something is much more important than we can imagine: it means awakening an innate instinct that may have fallen asleep. For a dog, following his instincts is important for development and socialization.

Look for an odor-free place

To begin teaching a dog the action of hunting, it is important to be in a particular place. There must not be many smells and there must not have been many animals.

As he learns, the dog will understand how to differentiate the smell he wants to look for from everyone else. But in the meantime, we need to start like this. Of course, choose an open-air area, because it would be difficult to find anything in the house.

Think about its olfactory capacity

Dogs have a very developed olfactory capacity, but it is not the same for everyone. So you have to think about that of your pet and look for a suitable search area for him.

There are dogs that can smell and search at greater distances, while others will only do so at shorter distances. Therefore, choose a place and a space suitable for your pet’s olfactory faculty.

Also, games will help you tremendously in making teaching easier. While it is an innate instinct, games will be very useful in developing it.

Early in the morning

Yes, specialists suggest that research should be organized before 6 am, as the sun has not yet risen and has not unleashed the humidity of the vegetation.

In addition to this, in these hours there will still be no footprints or odors in the area, and this will facilitate the task of finding your dog.

A lot of space

A park close to home is ideal. To develop your research skills well, a large space is important. And here comes the fun.

Sprinkle some food on the grass. The best thing is to keep the dog tied up while you are doing it, so that it does not go and eat it. Form a path with the remains of food and, if you want to ensure more fun and surprise your pet, spread some food on a toy.

It is recommended to use canned food to begin with, given its strong smell and easy removal from the toy. Later you can use kibble.

After you!

The time has come to let your dog know that the game has begun. Let him sniff and release him from the leash.

Use the “Search”, “Go” or “Forward” command to make your dog understand what you want. Remember that it has to be simple in the beginning, but as you continue, you can complicate things a bit.

For example, you could use less smelling food or perhaps objects, and each time you could push them further and further away. You could also play with hiding objects in trees or whatever else you can think of.

Remember to always use positive reinforcement, because yelling and scolding will lead nowhere and will take you away from your goal.

Above all, remember to do it frequently, because otherwise the animal will soon forget what it has learned and will retreat more and more instead of advancing in learning.