Chaffee is an alert terrier with an penchant for seeking out and consuming goose excrement and other miscellaneous objects.

Any attempt from her owners to retrieve the item from her mouth only encourages Chaffee to swallow the item faster and with more enthusiasm.  

 

Her foraging behavior was taken with relative ease until the day she digested toxic wood chips, which resulted in an emergency trip to the vet office.  And a daunting vet bill.

 

The wood chips came to pass and she recovered, but her longing to seek out and digest potentially toxic objects remained in tact.  That is when Chaffee’s owners called for help.

Like many hunting breeds, Chaffee has a strong drive to use her nose and ceasing this behavior all together was unrealistic.

To remedy the problem we taught her a seek command.

The seek command simply means, “Stop what you’re doing and use your nose to find something interesting.”  (The interesting item was a treat we threw on the ground when she was not looking.)  

When Chaffee sniffed the ground without permission (usually when we were approaching a goose population), she was encouraged to rush along and jog a few seconds.

She is NOT a fan of jogging.

Chaffee soon learned that sniffing without a command is not rewarding – not only does she not get to sniff, she has to jog – while sniffing on command, reaps results.   And these results will never leave her in the ER.

Do you have a dog who likes to sniff?  And if so, how do you channel that energy?

*Respond here or email Tanya@pavlovdogtraining.com.