I'm afraid he'll never be a search & rescue dog

It's been raining here all day and night, so earlier I tried the "find it" game with Luke again. Well...let's just say, my handsome boy is never going to be a drug sniffing, search and rescue dog. The only time he "found" any treats was when I literally showed him where they were hidden, and if he couldn't get at them fast enough, he got mad Oh and the basket game is a touch and go. When I first taught him it, he dropped the toy in the basket a few times, he really seemed to understand, now, he only does it once in a blue moon lol. He's got the "pick it up" and "bring it" down pat...just gotta work on the drop it in the basket part more I guess.

Bless him - at least he's trying, Jenn

Heehee bless him, is Luke the great dane, if so, I can just imagine his face, like 'Huh?'

(My female is pretty rubbish at the 'find it' game too, she runs around a little bit frantic, our male finds all the treats and she tried to bum bounce him out the way to eat them!)

He's trying hard but tired out from bathroom duties

Sounds like my Roxy.

Yes, Luke is a GD, and you know it's so darn cute when he gets distracted or frustrated....you can't help but smile. I tell him all the time that it's ok if he's not brilliant at EVERYTHING, after all, he is the greatest dane and most handsome man in the world...wouldn't want to ask too much more out of him lol.

You know though, when we're out on our walks he uses his nose ALOT to sniff things...so I wonder why in any other part of life he doesn't? There have been times out on trail walks or even just on teh street where I could have sworn he was a hound lol.

lol well see, my ultimate goal with the basket game, was to teach him to help me with the laundry Go around picking up dirty clothes for instance, and putting them in the basket. Or to clean up after his own toys. Funny how he has no problem at all taking OFF with my bras....just doesn't want to put them in the basket. Kinda like kids I guess.

Aaawww bless him!
We do hide & seek with treats every evening and sometimes Stone is soooo rubbish I actually have to go right up to it in the end and point to it .(but I do put them in some bizarre places!). My OH hides them in his trainers and then wonders why Stone won't go near them...eeewww!
But he seems to enjoy it - his tail wags 100 miles an hour when he's looking!

Bless him.

But I think he's smarter than you think, I just don't think he understands the game yet.

It was a long time before I started hiding the treats in difficult to get places and even now I'm careful about where I hid them - I don't want to encourage my dogs to start ripping my house apart because they think there's a half eaten biscuit somewhere

If you have a garden with grass, one thing you can do is to scatter some treats in the grass and tell him to go and find them. To start with, let him see you scatter them. He'll partly use his sight, but that's ok, because he's just getting used to the idea that he has to 'look' for something. You can then play the same thing in the dark where he has to use his nose more.

I'm not sure what treats you use, but if you want to encourage him to use his nose, at first smelly treats are a good idea.

As you say, he uses his nose a lot when on a walk, so I'm sure he'll get there

[QUOTE=tokiayla;2084438]Aaawww bless him!
We do hide & seek with treats every evening and sometimes Stone is soooo rubbish I actually have to go right up to it in the end and point to it .(but I do put them in some bizarre places!). My OH hides them in his trainers and then wonders why Stone won't go near them...eeewww!
But he seems to enjoy it - his tail wags 100 miles an hour when he's looking![/QUOTE]

Yes that tail, it's the same here We play this every afternoon with fish sticks, and I make Zena wait in the kitchen whilst I go and hide 2 of them in different rooms, and her little mouth is droooooling, until I release her with the ok and find it, and she zooooooms off with that tail high up in the air and curled back like an akita! Lol! I've never seen a gsd hold a tail like that before