Teaching dog to find horse shoes?

[EventerAJ]

Has anyone ever done this?

I hatched a crazy idea to train my RR puppy to find lost horse shoes. Because searching for shoes on my own is a frustrating gamble, and it seemed like a fun way to give my dog a “job.”

When she was about 5 months, I started asking her to FIND It, plopping an old shoe at her feet, and rewarding her for touching the shoe. She quickly began to slap at the shoe with her paw, after sitting and nosing it. I used a very high value treat (cheese).

A week later that progressed to throwing the shoe a few feet away, in her sight. I commanded FIND IT and she promptly went to it (cheese!). I don’t work on it more than once or twice a week, and she tends to lose interest after 4 or 5 finds (she starts doing other tricks in her repertoire) so I keep it short.

Now at about 7 months old, I toss the shoe somewhere in the barnyard out of her sight, and she’ll hunt for it when asked to Find It. I still “help” her a little if she seems lost, standing near the spot and saying “good” if she gets closer. She can get distracted by other animals (other dog, barn cat, chickens nearby) but she seems to know what to find and has never marked a wrong object. I try to never let her get discouraged, and I only use the Find It command to search for the shoe.

I plan to keep practicing these simple searches until she’s more focused (she is still an exuberant puppy) but I’m hopeful to move on to a small paddock “blind hunt” in a few weeks.

I’ve never done scent work with dogs before, is there anything else I should be doing? I work with her off-leash, so she can freely investigate on her own. I’ve trained lots of dog tricks, I have good timing and moderate expectations. I’ve used several different old horse shoes (including one with a leather pad) and she successfully marks each of them.
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[RacetrackReject]

I think this is such a great idea!

I don’t really have anything to add in regards to training, but I trained my JRT to find kittens. It was rather inadvertent though.

There were a lot of cats left at my farm when I moved in and I kept hearing kittens in the barn areas and could not find them. I would walk around mumbling to myself “where’s the kitty?” while searching and my dog just sort of picked up on it. Whenever I say “where’s the kitty?”, he will start sniffing and searching until he finds one. Sometimes, if there is a cat sitting nearby, he will keep pointing out that one and I’ll have to tell not that kitty a few times before he will move on.

Now that I think about it, the same scenario has worked for “where’s the ball?”. lol

[walkinthewalk]

I think that’s a marvelous idea but I’m no help with improving the process, lol.

our five yr old Catahoula/mix has been bringing one of the horses into the paddock since he (the dog) was about 18 months. DH will say “go get Rusty” and the dog does. Rusty is my horse that chases strange dogs out of the pasture so the fact that he puts up with the dog’s nonsense in “herding” his 24 yo self thru the gate is quite a feat, lol.

Many many years ago, when my son was six or seven, he liked to run off from me on the farm. I taught the Doberman to “go find him”, lollollol

[Sweetums_Mom]

That’s a great idea! How about boots, bell boots, fly masks…and while we are on the subject…why don’t they offer boots in bright, fluorescent colors so everything doesn’t look like poop piles! :D…Sorry, no help at all to actually train the dogs. :lol::winkgrin:

[Alexie]

What a great idea, how about clicker training?

[Where_sMyWhite]

If you will be pursing scent work, you’ll need to work on some type of ‘precise’ with the odor(s) you want her to find… horse poop (lots of things smell like that), the metal in the shoe (that may change depending on the shoes and you may need to branch out to cover different mental odors), your odor, your horse’s hoof odor.

Start with a used shoe that has all the odors you’re looking for, hold shoe in one hand and treat in the other. When she sniffs the shoe, reward at the shoe (source). Slowly move your hands further apart and always reward when she’s at source (of the shoe, not the treat).

Since you’ve already done some “basics” with scent work, she should pick up the new scent fairly quickly. Always as best you can, reward when she’s at source

Sounds like a good project. Report back on your success!

[Houndhill]

What a great idea, practical use for our dogs! We should all teach our dogs this!!

[EventerAJ]

@Where'sMyWhite

If you will be pursing scent work, you’ll need to work on some type of ‘precise’ with the odor(s) you want her to find… horse poop (lots of things smell like that), the metal in the shoe (that may change depending on the shoes and you may need to branch out to cover different mental odors), your odor, your horse’s hoof odor.

Start with a used shoe that has all the odors you’re looking for, hold shoe in one hand and treat in the other. When she sniffs the shoe, reward at the shoe (source). Slowly move your hands further apart and always reward when she’s at source (of the shoe, not the treat).

Since you’ve already done some “basics” with scent work, she should pick up the new scent fairly quickly. Always as best you can, reward when she’s at source

Sounds like a good project. Report back on your success!

Thanks! I started out rewarding her for touching a horseshoe placed on the ground at her feet. Sniff=praise & treat. Repeated many times. She learned the target quickly.

You bring up a good point though about what she’s really scenting. I do touch the horse shoes, so is she picking up on my smell? I think she’s tracking the smell of horse foot…she loves hoof trimmings and the leather pad shoe has a tiny bit of hoof wall still attached, that’s the shoe I started with. I expect the leather pad also really holds the stinky hoof smell. I have since used three other plain shoes from three horses total, varying degrees of age/rust, and she hunts them all equally. I haven’t yet tried an aluminum shoe, but I have one in my horse trailer.

I threw 3 shoes into a paddock today. She took a little longer to find them in a new place, more sand than grass, but I kept the search area small (20x20) and she was successful. I buried one shoe a few inches in sand, in a deep hoof print. I had to help her with that one, encouraging her to keep trying that spot, but she started digging lightly and found it, quite pleased with herself. I’ll have to work on this some more, so she learns that shoes may be slightly “below ground” and not always just laying around.
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I’m pleasantly surprised at how well she’s doing so far. Being very, very food motivated helps!

[Where_sMyWhite]

Sounds like she is doing well and you’re doing a good job at teaching.

“Buried” is harder… ability wil also depend on if the sand/soil is dry or damp/wet. Ambient air temp can also affect scent behavior.

Keep up the good work. Don’t go too fast so she looses track of what you’re asking

I do NACSW and AKC scent/nose with with my dogs It’s fun to watch them work!

[chestnutmarebeware]

@Sweetums Mom

That’s a great idea! How about boots, bell boots, fly masks…and while we are on the subject…why don’t they offer boots in bright, fluorescent colors so everything doesn’t look like poop piles! :D…Sorry, no help at all to actually train the dogs. :lol::winkgrin:

I taught my ACD to find fly masks back when he was young—but he’s 16 now and can’t make long runs anymore.

He already knew “Get the…” from being told to “Get the kitty” when one of the cats would start scratching the furniture. He’d race over and bump them away with his chest. Then it was short work to teach him what "fly mask " meant.

Unfortunately, by the time my horses got the masks off they were beyond repair.