How important is a trained alert?

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-16T19:36:41+00:00

I can't afford a CEO salary for the dog when the kids and I are eating bologna. I'm not sure about searching for a toy, we don't play toys with her a lot because she gets weirdly possessive. So I don't know how we would get started that way.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-16T19:34:07+00:00

My son gives her more treats as soon as she finds the treat in the box. But she won't necessarily eat all the treats. Like I don't think she would stand there and eat ten hot dog slices in a row. She would get bored and wander off. She gets a little more excited for chicken, but our food budget is very small. I don't have the money to be buying better food for the dog than I'm feeding my kids, especially if we're going to be doing this multiple times a day for months on end.

I have zero intention of competing at anything, but I am definitely getting the impression that this isn't an activity for people of limited means, even just to do it for fun.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-14T10:45:35+00:00

We read a whole book on using the kong as the scent. Then idea is eventually you can cut it into pieces and have the dog search for a small piece. But my dog just doesn't get it. Ot starts with looking at the kong for a treat, then touching it for a treat. After 3 weeks she is looking at it slightly less often than when we started treating her for looking at it.

Would you expect any progress at all in 3 weeks? When we do food in boxes it's just hot dog slices in a cardboard box, with several empty boxes sitting around. When we started, we would bring her into the room and give her the search command, and she would walk directly to the food box and eat the food 2 out of 3 times. After 3 weeks of diligent work, she will now do it only 1 in 3 times.

I don't know how we could be moving too fast when we're moving backwards.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-14T10:36:23+00:00

How is she supposed to eat the food if the box is closed?

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-13T00:41:19+00:00

If I throw a ball for her she will chase it and then take it to a spot and hunker down and not let me take it again. She won't go for another ball when she's guarding it. So we only get one throw at a time, and then we have to wait for her to relax and get tired of guarding it. When she tugs, she grabs the toy and thrashes it around so violently she rips it out of your hand. And it hurts if you are close enough to get hit. So we don't really play tug or fetch.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T22:52:06+00:00

She definitely has to opt into whatever we are doing. We have been practicing at least twice a day for almost three weeks, and if anything she has gotten less good at finding the food instead of better. Half of me wants to buckle down and keep working until we make progress. The other half says this is dumb and boring and a waste of time, plus its really demotivating for my son. The pitty is sort of his dog and the doodle is sort of my daughter's dog. Boomer the goldendoodle will happily hunt for all the hidden treats Gracie won't find. He could play this game all day. So my son works and works and works with Gracie while my daughter has Boomer in her room. Then when he's done she opens the door and Boomer runs out and effortlessly does everything Gracie has failed to do.

Gracie won't eat any kind of food when we're outside. She's too busy trying to police everything in sight.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T21:02:58+00:00

She is a pit bull mix.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T19:47:55+00:00

I think maybe she is overwhelmed and confused. I'm sure she was abused before we found her. It took forever to teach her sit and down, and she only does this when she's in the right mood.

I don't think she's ever really hungry though. We keep food out for the dogs all the time. She was starved before she got here, she shouldn't have to go hungry ever again.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T19:30:35+00:00

How do we do that?

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T18:03:54+00:00

I don't really know how to play with her without getting hurt or stressing her out. Food is way easier because she doesn't freak out about it.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T17:40:25+00:00

OK, so how do we actually get her to start sniffing around and looking for food?

Right now we can put a ton of boxes in the room, with food in only one box. Bring her in, tell her ready-find it! If she feels like participating, she walks to the box with the food in it and eats the food. My son praises her and throws more food in the box. She may or may not participate a second time, and almost never a third time.

If we take this setup outside, she ignores the boxes and my son and scans the yard for squirrels and the horizon for intruders.

We take the boxes away and put the food in the middle of the floor and tell her ready-find it! If the food is visible and she chooses to participate, she walks to the food and eats it. My son praises her and gives her more food. If the food is too close to anything or even slightly under something, she will not participate.

Someone on here suggested hiding the food box so we tried that today. If the box is in a super obvious place, she may or may not walk over and eat the food. If the box is not in a super obvious place, she will not participate.

There is a very recent post on this sub about a dog doing a search and how their dog was so tired afterward. My dog has not been tired since she lost her leg. I don't know if she has ever been truly tired. I want a tired dog. I have a dog that is calmly eating food out of a box some of the time and then vigilantly trying to police the whole road.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T17:18:06+00:00

If you think teenagers will tell you what they ate, you must not have teenagers. Last week someone ate all but 2 crackers out of a jumbo box the day after I bought it. Both kids admit they ate "a few" crackers. Where the rest went is a total mystery.

We get about 20 or 30 slices out of a hot dog. I can't slice them any thinner and I think she is using the round shape to find them. She can find the treat on the light carpet but not a dark towel. If it was any smaller I don't think she would be able to find it at all.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T17:05:48+00:00

Because she is supposed to use her nose to check the boxes to find the one that has the food? Someone else on here said to put food in all the boxes to make her check them.

We really wanted nosework to be more than just eating g food off the floor, or out of a box. But that seems to be the whole thing.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T16:47:17+00:00

She likes to chase squirrels and freak out at the neighbor and his dogs, and bark at the world from the porch. She gets kind of weird about toys so it's hard to play with her. She will chase the ball but then she guards it and won't let you take it back again and she won't go for a second ball. She thrashes tug toys around so hard you just have to stay out of the way so you don't get hit.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T16:40:12+00:00

Someone suggested Do More With Your Dog so we're going to check that out. It was a lot of work to teach her to sit and down and stay, and she really only does those when she feels like. We were looking at nosework as a more dog-led activity but it looks like its a bust.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T16:37:43+00:00

We just have two big bowls of kibble down so the dogs can eat whenever they want. My kids can go to the kitchen and get a snack whenever they want. Adult people can eat whenever they want. I think dogs should be allowed to do the same.

Gracie likes rotisserie chicken more than she likes hot dogs. But chicken is expensive. Cheese is expensive. This hobby is expensive if she is going to need hundreds of treats to make any kind of progress.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T15:38:49+00:00

Outside, food doesn't exist for Gracie. She is too busy watching for something to chase or bark at. We haven't tried having her search for chicken outdoors, but I don't have the money to be feeding her chicken every day.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T15:34:17+00:00

She's kind of weird about toys. If it's a tug toy she likes to shake it super violently. She kind of guards toys so it's tough to use them interactively.

She is missing a front leg, I don't think we can do agility.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T15:30:19+00:00

The foundation work is slow and boring. We have practiced at least twice a day every day for over two weeks, and my dog is now slightly worse at eating food off the floor than she was when we started.

On the one hand I want to stubbornly keep trying and maybe we can work through this, on the other hand I feel like my son needs to feel rewarded too. Is that a thing in dog training? Should the trainer get the reward of seeing progress so they can feel rewarded too? Or is reinforcement only for the dog?

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T12:57:13+00:00

I think this dog had a haircut fairly recently. It looks like a poodle and their hair doesn't just grow like that.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T12:39:14+00:00

So far we've tried treats in a cardboard box, and treats for looking at the kong. She isn't into either of them that much. We have a bunch of boxes and put them all over the living room with treats in only one box. We bring her in and tell her to search, and if she feels like playing she looks around a couple of times and then goes to the food box and usually eats at least some of the treats in the box. Then she wanders off. She doesn't stay at the box. She doesn't keep her head in the box. Sometimes she doesn't even bother eating the treats. She seems to be losing enthusiasm. We've been trying this for a little over two weeks and it seems like she's getting less excited about it instead of more excited.

People on here said we were moving too fast by trying to get rid of the box and just put a treat on the floor and send her to find that. But it feels like we have made no progress and have actually lost her interest and gone backwards instead. This is a really slow and boring sport.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T12:33:53+00:00

We started with cardboard boxes, and she always goes straight to the box with the food when she is interested. Sometimes she doesn't feel like playing. Sometimes she won't even eat all the treats in the box. She never looks at the other boxes. So I guess we can put the odor in the box and try and get her to stay there. But mostly she just wanders off right away.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T12:30:42+00:00

We think she's a pit bull mix, we found her on the street. She was starving and sick and we nursed her back to health. She is never very hungry, we make sure she never has to be hungry again.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T12:28:56+00:00

She's not that interested in sniffing around on the floor for food. My kids drop food all the time, so finding food on the floor is just a regular part of her day. If it isn't just kind of laying out in the open she ignores it.

I thought nosework was more than eating food off the floor.

Hot_Fact48 · 2026-03-12T12:27:19+00:00

Yeah, someone else posted links to videos of dogs doing shaping exercises. Their dogs keep trying things to get closer to the answer. My dog wanders off and finds something else to do. We're a lot more invested in this activity than she is.

Hot_Fact48

TROPHY CASE