Getting Blaze to use his nose

[aBC4me]

I have been trying to get Blaze to use his nose more but it just isn't working. I have tried the

• put a treat under a cup and mix the cups around game
  

I have tried bring out some t-shirts and hiding a treat somewhere in the pile

• I have tried hide and seek (hotter/colder)
  

I have tried hiding toys outside

 

Nothing seems to be working... It will look like he is using his nose, but you can tell that he isn't using it to potential. He is all visual and hearing, and I understand that that is what the breed is, but for some reason my heart keeps telling me to teach to use his nose better and I am big on there is a reason for everything and I need to follow what my heart is telling me.

 

Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do here. All help appreciated and respected.

[3dogslater]

Try making the game simpler. Put a super smelly treat under a single cup and let him "find" it a couple times. Then add in another cup, put the treat under one and let him find it - without moving the cups around. Make the game really simple so that he gets to win frequently and keep his rate of reinforcement high. Same idea for hiding a treat in a towel. At first, just put the treat on top of the towel, then under a tiny fold, then under a bigger fold. Play when he's really hungry and use high value rewards.

 

A good book for fun nose stuff to do with your dogs is Fun Nose Games for Dogs http://www.dogwise.com/itemdetails.cfm?ID=DGT196

[FoxgloveBC]

maybe try a more enticing treat?

 

I know some dogs tend to love hot dogs and that cheese that comes in the can... maybe that would make him use his nose better!

 

By the way, the picture in your avatar is just too cute, it makes me laugh everytime I see it! =)

[Ms.DaisyDuke]

I frist tought Daisy how to target my hand with her nose using a treat and a clicker. I would fold my thumb over the palm of my hand and hold a treat against my palm with my thumb. Once she nosed it I would click and treat, once she got used to that, I started saying "touch", now we are slowly learning how to target anything I point at...she almost knocks her food bin over when I say "Where's your breakfast". Have you tried a clicker? I found it VERY useful for this one. It might work for you...?

 

I just re-read the post and realized that you meant using his nose to smell....sorry, i'm having a blonde day!

[Withzia]

Maybe you could try some exercises from search-dog training. You'll need an outdoors area with some brush and trees to hide behind and a friend to help.

 

First, run off a few times with your friend holding Blaze back, duck behind a bush after waving to Blaze, and then let him find you. (Each time tease him with a favorite toy first, run with that toy, and then reward him with it.) Then make it harder so that he can't find you by sight--your friend can turn him around or cover his eyes so that he won't see where you've hid. Once he gets the game, you be the one to hold him and have the friend run off with the toy.

 

You'll probably see him start to use his nose more and more. You can observe the wind direction and plan it so that running straight out in the direction he saw you start to go will bring him into the wind so that he'll do an abrupt turn to go into you.

[vanillalove]

Withzia has a good idea, I used to play "hide and seek" with my sister and Petey and I think it really helped develop his sense of smell. To this day, if my sister happens to mention my name in conversation back at home, Petey still races around the house, nose going wild and checking all my old hiding places.

 

Although, Petey isn't purebred Border Collie and his nose has always been a strong point, but I'm sure it would help a lot!

[Tiga's_mom]

Personally, I want Tiga to use his nose less. lol. All he does is sniff, sniff, sniff. No matter where we go or what we do, he is constantly smelling to see if anyone left some sort of food morsel behind.

[Withzia]

Am I mentioning some conventional wisdom that says that purebred BCs can't have good noses for scent? Fortunately no one told Zia, and she seems to do just fine. There's a member of the search-dog team here who had a purebred BC--his dog earned FEMA advanced certification, spent two weeks searching the 9-11 rubble, and was deployed to Gulfport, Mississippi after Katrina.