Why can't my dog guess which hand the treat is in?

2601 Views 14 Replies 10 Participants Last post by Bonn1997, Mar 18, 2009

Bonn1997

Discussion Starter · Mar 17, 2009 (Edited)

I think she has a good sense of smell. Better than mine. She can find treats when I hide them in the house. But at least half the time she picks the wrong hand when I put the treat in one of the hands and then get her to pick. She'll usually go over and start sniffing and licking the wrong hand! It's weird! Is her sense of smell really inferior to most dogs'?

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TooneyDogs

· #11 · Mar 18, 2009

This is one of the first games we teach in Puppy Kindergarten and it's a very important one. The puppy is NOT supposed to go directly to the hand with the treat. He is supposed to deliberately pick the empty hand....nudge it, lick it or paw it. The whole concept is teaching the puppy to do something else (work) for the reward...not try to take the treat directly. It's called Indirect Access and is a key concept to training.

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