Following on from @charlie 's great thread on find it games, I have a question about cues. I play two different 'find it' games with Jess - one that we use on walks where I throw or hide treats and get her to sniff them out, and one that we use in the house, where I hide a toy and she finds it. She really loves both. At the moment I use almost the same cue for both games: "find it" for treats and "find the tiger" or "find the ball" when I hide a toy (I've been trying to teach her the names of her toys!) I've been wondering if this is a bit confusing for her, and whether I should use a totally different cue for hiding a toy ("seek it"? "search"?). Or is it actually better to keep a similar cue because both games are about teaching her that when she hunts on my command she will find something interesting? Does it matter? It's just something I've been wondering about and would be interested in others' thoughts!
We use "where is. . ." and a name when hunting for toys in the house. He has "blue blanket, monkey, green monkey, moose, and squirrel" Outside, we tell him "Go get. . ." tennis ball, bottle, pot I cannot remember the term used in the book (Inside of a Dog...) but essentially it said that they do not understand words but rather the sound of them. I would guess that your Jess is cueing off the Find word. And yes, they will differentiate between different toys. Not always perfect, but darn good! Oh, and we gang up on him in the evening. I will be playing "blue blanket" with him on the floor and my wife will hide "Rocky (he is the squirrel)" or one of the other toys. It is amazing how when he brings the blanket back he immediately notices that Rocky is missing but does not go look for him. Sometime later I will say "Where is Rocky? and off he goes!
I just say find it and use a hand signal as well. The same one I use for retrieving. Only thing I noticed now ( since we started find it ) when we are out in the yard he has starting tracking the wildlife that passes through every night instead of just giving a sniff. I hope it’s not problematic and hurting his Recall. He’s on a short lead restriction because of a surgery.
I have "find it" and a "find" whatever toy/ball cue, hand signals, also just started working on a 'hunt' whistle today x
thanks all - in that case it sounds like there's no problem with using the same cue for both games. Clever Murphy! I'll try this last game too, Jess loves going off to hunt her toys.
I have a separate hunt cue for training or working which is a whistle cue, 2 soft long peeeeeps! I also have cue for when we a just playing find the treats, Casper's favourite game
