# find object/keys



## Chris Michalek (Feb 13, 2008)

how do I teach my dog to find an object with my scent on it? My wife was out running and lost her keys in a field. We found them after searching for two hours. It would have been nice to send the dogs out to find them in just a few minutes.


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## Lynsey Fuegner (Apr 11, 2007)

I am in no way an expert on this subject..I did however have to train a dog for an article search in a field when I was at TRS and to this day Fenris still loves searching for things in the grass. I started out getting him really pumped up for his toy (he likes the Kong but you can use anything the dog goes nuts over). I hold the dog by the collar and let him watch me toss the toy into some tall grass, I immediately let the dog go so he can dive in and find his toy. As he gets comfortable I begin making this game more difficult, I toss the toy then spin him in a small circle to "disorient" him a bit before letting him go get the toy. As he improves I begin raising the criteria of my search...I stay further and further away from the search area, I increase the size of my search area, etc. At first you want to make it pretty easy for success but as the dog improves you can extend the amount of time in the seaches to encourage the dog to search longer, showing him that even if he has to look longer and harder, he still wins. Success is crucial at this stage, we want to convince the dog that if you indicate he should look, there is always something out there to be found. Seperate from the actual search you will want to teach the indication...I do this by using a carpet square or some other neutral object. I place the object on the ground and let the dog come up to it, as the dog smells the object I give the command I would like them to use as an indication (I use down but you can teach the dog to sit, bark, scratch, retrieve, etc.) as soon as the dog is in position I reward with the toy...soon the dog will learn that they come across an object with human scent, they indicate, and a reward happens.
Once the dog is searching well for his toy and is understanding the concept of the indication I begin to combine the search and indication and transfer to other objects; for example an empty old wallet...I will back up to the beginning and toss the wallet into the grass, I let the dog go "find" the wallet. If you've taught the indication well then the dog should indicate, allowing you to reward...If the dog finds the item and stands there puzzled the first time that's ok too, give the command and reward. 
As long as you are consistent and the dog is having fun it's such an easy "game" to play.

As I said above, I am far from an expert, I just know this method worked well for me :smile:


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## Chris Michalek (Feb 13, 2008)

thank you lynsey. I'll try that with the keys.

I can throw a ball or stick in the dark and tell them to find it and they will. I can say find me a stick and they will run out and find a random stick for me to throw. I can say find me a ball and they will bring back either the tennis or basketball. This behavior was never trained. 

Last night I was saying find my keys and they didn't even run out to look. I tried "such" and that made my male put his nose to the ground and run off but he came back with nothing.

I was thinking just tossing my keys and make him bring them but then what if I lost a cell phone? How do I define my scent or my wife's scent and tell him to search for any object with my scent regardless of whether or not he knows what the object is?


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## Chris Michalek (Feb 13, 2008)

hmm... this would be like coming across articles in schutzhund tracking? I haven't taught articles yet.


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## Lynsey Fuegner (Apr 11, 2007)

Iit is similar in a sense to articles on tracking (as far as the indication goes) but IMHO (and like I said I am no expert in this, I dabbled in it a bit at most) an article on tracking and finding a lost article this way are two totally different things. In tracking the dog is tracking footstep to footstep and indicating the article. In the article search the dog is air scenting and if I were training a dog for Schutzhund I wouldn't do a lot of air scenting for articles or it could interfere with your foot step tracking




Chris Michalek said:


> thank you lynsey. I'll try that with the keys.
> 
> I can throw a ball or stick in the dark and tell them to find it and they will. I can say find me a stick and they will run out and find a random stick for me to throw. I can say find me a ball and they will bring back either the tennis or basketball. This behavior was never trained.
> 
> ...


I like to set up the search senario...and get the dog so pumped to go out and look for something, it's really important to get the dog reliable on finding his toy before you start adding in other objects...as far as using the "such" command, I wouldn't do this, especially with a Schutzhund dog because I want to keep tracking and air scenting two totally different scenarios. As far as tossing the keys and such, I wouldn't worry so much about the retrieving things as I would the searching and the indicating...that way you are teaching him to go out and indicate something that smells like human...again I am no expert at this, and I'm sure there is someone on the board much more kinowlegable at this than myself :smile:


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