Nosework: Teach Your Senior Dog Step by Step

This is an easy nosework game that senior dogs can learn, even those who have mild dementia. Finding food is pretty hard-wired into dogs and most animals.

Dogs with moderate to severe dementia can’t learn much, if anything, but some may still enjoy using their noses in a simpler version. See the last photo of Cricket at the bottom of the post.

Nosework is one of the most enriching activities you can offer your dog, and there are dozens of ways to do it. Dogs love to use their noses! I teach my dogs to search for a little packet of food. I use some kibble folded up in a cardboard paper towel roll. I start off very, very easy, putting the food down in front of them and using the cue “Find it!” You could say anything; they learn the cue as part of the training process.

Cricket was able to learn some nosework games as a senior dog at the age of 13, even though she was beginning to have dementia.

My dogs graduated from being able to find the kibble in a small room, to a big room, to somewhere in half my house, to my whole house, to my back porch, to my whole yard! We built up the behavior over years. The most important thing is not to rush. Don’t try to “challenge” them or brag about how hard you made them work. Keep it easy for a long time. Add challenges very gradually, and only when you see that the actual search part is bringing them joy, even before they find the food.

The step by step instructions for this enriching game are in the video and also in the transcript below it.

Transcript for “Find It” Video

Show Video Transcript

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Tips for Nosework Challenges

• If your dog isn’t excited about kibble, use something higher value like homemade treats, soft dog food roll, roast meat, or commercial treats. Once they come to love the search, you may be able to drop back to kibble. I’m all for giving dogs special treats, but nosework is so fulfilling for dogs that the search itself usually becomes exciting for them.
• Use a verbal cue (or a unique hand signal for deaf dogs) consistently from the very beginning. Remember, you are going to make it easy enough that they can find it every time. So to your dog, the verbal cue will quickly mean, “Hey, there’s some food for me to find!” (Tip-within-a-tip: once you start using the packet of food, seeing you prepare it will teach your dogs that nosework games are about to happen! Then you don’t even need the verbal cue.)
• If your dog can’t find the food you have hidden (which usually means you made it too hard), sometimes they will come “ask” you for help. Do not take them to the food and show them. In this game, we want to gently encourage them to search independently and use their noses. If you “help” them too many times, they will learn to quit and ask for help. (And that means you are making it too hard.)
  If they are struggling, one thing you can do is stroll over closer to the hide area.  You will act as a lure, and your dog will usually follow and start searching that area. But try your best to build difficulty very gradually so you don’t have to do this often. Be sure your hides stay within your dog’s skill level and your dog doesn’t get frustrated. 
• Don’t elevate the food. Keep it at ground level. Odor spreads differently when it is not on the ground and this adds a whole level of difficulty. I started elevating the food only after a year or so, when my dogs could easily find food that I put anywhere in my whole yard on ground level. Don’t try it at the beginning!
• Likewise, don’t put the hide in a hole or even a dip or gully. Often, not much odor will come out. Holes can be even harder than elevating the food.
• All my dogs were able to find the hidden food even if I was sloppy and had some of the exact same food in my pocket. If you start them off right, and teach them that the cue means there is some food on the floor for them, they will learn to distinguish that from the odor coming from your pocket. (Just don’t give them any food from your pocket, or they may decide to work you for that instead!)
• If your dog has dementia, her capabilities of finding food will likely diminish. Then you can reverse the process and make the “hides” easier and easier. Here’s what it looked like for Cricket near the end of her life. I hope this gives you an idea of how easy you can make an enrichment game and still have it be pleasurable for the dog. Cricket was losing her coordination about eating but still seemed to enjoy “finding” a little trail of treats. (She would not have been able to open a packet and she had long since lost the ability to search methodically.)

On the other hand, this is how skilled my dog Summer got at it after a couple years. This was a difficult hide: it was in a hole and under a propped up kiddie swimming pool. She was 11 years old in this clip, confident, and running at full speed (the video is not sped up). Don’t try one this difficult early on!

Again, there are dozens of ways to play nosework with your dogs. I like this method because I didn’t need to teach them an odor. Food odors are intrinsically interesting! Using another odor is a fun training challenge, but if you are just looking for an easy way to have fun with your dogs, food works great! And it is so cute when they tear open the little packet.

Copyright 2019 Eileen Anderson