Tanka and I are getting ready to order and start on the nosework dvd. I figured it is something fun for us both to work his mind, and what a great way to spend time when it is too hot or too rainy to enjoy being outside. I am very excited about it.

To anyone who has prior experience with this kind of work: Will I be able to teach Tanka to find my cell phone? I was thinking if it is a particular smell he will indicate on, why not put a cover on my phone that could hold onto that odor. Would he constantly be wanting to tell me where my phone is, since that odor would always be present? As you can probably figure out, I have a bad habit of misplacing my cell phone, and don't have a home phone, so it can be very aggravating. What a great skill it would be for Tanka to be able to find it.

he knows the Find It command right now, but I have used it with his toys, or to find one of us that is hiding, and it means find them and bring them back, unless of course it is us!. That is unacceptable with my phone, since teeth and slobber and phones don't really mix. When I started looking into this work where they only indicate and don't retrieve, I thought, hmmm, this could work.

Any thoughts on if this is possible? Julie

Training him to find your phone will be easy after you get the foundation work on the DVD done. You can imprint him on your phone just like a new odor. What you could do is once in a while, put a drop of a novel odor on your phone to make it easier for him to find. Pick a scented oil that you don't currently have in your home. You can then train a specific command for that odor.

He will learn that he doesn't get paid for finding the phone on you, just like a bomb dog not indicating on the ammunition present on the handler.

You would want to train a passive focused response to your phone, like Andrew teaches, to avoid the slobber issue. This is not covered on the first video, but hopefully the next video in the series comes out soon.

Training dogs to find cell phones is the new "big" thing in correctional institutions. They use more than just a cell phone, but they are training them and having success.

DFrost

I trained Kenzi to find my keys. Not because I'm losing them (though it would come in handy if I did!) but because I wanted to have a specific readily available object to play nose games with.

If it has a scent then a dog can be trained to find it.

I only recommended adding scented oil to make the vapor pressure stronger off the phone so the search would go quicker.

Well that is good. EVen if I have to wait a bit to get to that point. I like the idea of the scent too, it's easy to come by essential oils. That way next time it falls out of my pocket in the yard, I don't have to email someone to start calling me while i walk around the yard. :-)

I lost my car keys in a 10 acre field with ankle deep grass. Spent an hour looking for them then in frustration went back to the car. It was training day for Schutzhund and one of the club members asked about the fact that Thunder was trained in article search when we were in SAR. DUH!
I walked Thunder over to the field and turned him loose with a "find it" command. He started quartering the field and about 100 ft out he zeroed in and started barking at the ground. He was standing over the keys and it took about 60 seconds.
I REALLY felt like a dunce!

My shepherd is trained to pick up anything with 'human' scent for working trials competitions. A client lost their keys in a huge field - probably thirty or fourty acres. I sent Storm out and made myself a coffee. About five mins passed and he brought me a set of keys - unfortunately not the right ones. Sent him out again and took another 5/10 mins, came back with the right ones. Poor guy was tired after that.