I hid from my dog the other day, under a quilt on the bed. It can be dangerous as Bob says, with a high drive dog. I didn't expect him to jump on top of me and start digging through the quilt (where my head was!) to get to me. OUCH!!!! Won't be doing that again!

Don't ask me what I was thinking!!! I should have known he would be crazy!

The first time I played this game was amazing. Like Bob described, I teased my GSD with a hand full of deer meat. It was pitch black outside, and my wife held him and counted for 1 minute. I ran across the field and into the woods. After she let him go, he found me in a matter of seconds. We did this again, and I ran in the opposite direction, and he found me just as quickly. The key for us is that he will do anything for deer meat. We always tell people not to tease the dog, but I guess it's okay to break the rules.. Hah!

I hope you have lots of fun with this game.

Well?? Come on Kori, we're dying to know how the games went.

Tell us!!

I had a similar situation as Sandy described. I hid UNDER the bed. Told my friend to hold my dog and then use the command I taught him " go find ( my name)" Well he found me alright - I tried to get out from under the bed and was bounced on by a highly excited and proud 85 lb pup. It felt like a dinosuar was jumping on me and took awhile to get out from that tight spot. We are working on coming to a sit or down when we find our person now.

I've been teaching Ginger to "find" Chloe or her ball etc for a while now. Chloe (my daughter) loves to play hide-n-seek, so this gets the dog involved.

With Ginger on the lead, Chloe hides and says, "ok". I tell Ginger to "Find Chloe" and walk with her. I only allow her to touch her with her nose and then pull her back, make her sit and praise and treat her.

We play both inside and outside.

 Quote: Bob Scott

Korie, in retrospect(and a pm from someone with better sense then me), you may want to have the dog find toys rather then the kids. Teaching the dog to chase the kids could be to much if they are to small to control the dog themselves. I didn't realize how young your kids are. That can make a huge difference with a highly drive dog.

That is true with a highly driven working line adult dog, but where the game is closely monitored by the adult in the house with a young dog on a drag line why would that be an issue?

Kori's dog is a young dog too we are not talking a a full grown firecracker either.

The game was/is search not chase. If those rules are clear for everyone (kids, dog, parent) then it is great fun, though as in any type of dog training risk of injury is always possible.

I'm just relaying my own good experience and the fun my family had while playing search with the dog in the house while we were housebound by weather.

I think you don't want to start a household pet puppy off that it is ok to chase after moving young children and putting them in a sit stay will nigh be impossible. I forsee many youngsters in this house interactive with the dog over the years.

I think you would have a lot of fun by teaching the 4 and 6 year old to call the puppy to come when called. And a darned good thing the puppy needs to learn. Now, you can hide the kids (make it easy first one child, easy location) and have one of them call out the puppies name and it will have to use its nose to find them then reward like crazy when it does.

You are taking the visual prey out of the picture that way. Dog is still excited but that is triggerd by the call, not the instictual "it moves I get to chase it"

I think this would work because "callouts" also used during SAR training for puppies that get distracted when runaways get lengthened or go to the wrong person on a multiple person search. You can chain it to a command "find Jenny" "find Kevin"

None of this is tracking by the way. Just air scenting.