While we are spending more time at home with our dogs, I thought it’d be a great time to introduce a hide and seek game that any dog can learn to play and that most dogs and their people find quite enjoyable. Kibble Hide and Seek is an excellent skill-building game, teaching self-control, attentional focus, and even some scent work! I’ve been playing Kibble Hide and Seek on cloudy days, Sunday afternoons, and sick days for as long as I can remember, and it always fills my home with a bit of cheer and shared enjoyment for me and my dogs. All you need to start is a bowl full of your dog’s kibble. If your dog eats wet or homemade food or your dog doesn’t seem excited by his own kibble when offered by hand, use small dog treats instead. It must be food that your dog is interested in finding and eating.
You must first build your dog’s Sit/Stay. If you dog does not yet know how to Sit, you may as well take the time we have during shelter-in-place to teach her! Most dogs can learn Sit very easily, and we will assume here that your dog has already learned how to Sit. Fewer dogs are able to Sit and Stay, however, so you will need to start here before you hide the kibble. Spend the first session or two having your dog Sit and then say Stay in a calm, happy voice and with an open palm at your chest. After 1-2 seconds, praise and deliver a piece of kibble from your hand or pocket. Repeat several times until your dog is reliably staying in a Sit position for several seconds at a time. After every few repetitions, increase the number of seconds your dog must Stay before you praise and treat. If he stands up before you praise and treat, simply walk away for a moment, take a sip of coffee, then come back and try again, keeping the duration short enough that he is successful most of the time. Aim to use lots of kibble during this exercise – if you can dole out his whole meal in the context of this training game, that’s great! When your dog can Sit and Stay for about 10 seconds over several repetitions, try stepping away one step after you give the Stay cue, then return to him and praise and treat if he is in a Stay. Most dogs have the natural inclination to follow us (and the kibble in our pockets) so take your time with this, providing several repetitions where the only requirement is that the dog Stay as you take one baby step away, still facing the dog, then return to him to praise and treat. When he can do this several times in a row, try taking two steps away then return to praise and treat. The goal here is to teach the dog to Stay even as you move away from him, and teach him that only when he holds the Stay until you get all the way back to him can he earn praise and treat. Here too, take small steps – literally baby steps - away from him so that he gets it right at least 80% of the time. Take several days to work on this alone (we’ve got the time, after all!) and see if you can’t move to the point where you can walk across the room and back while he holds position.
At this stage, you’re ready for the first hide and seek challenge. Say Stay with your dog sitting in position and move several steps away. Lay a piece of kibble on the floor by your feet while holding your open palm at your chest as a visual reminder of the cue he should be attending to (Stay) and then walk back to him, praise and say “Find it!” and let him run to the kibble on the floor to eat it. If he breaks his Stay before you place the kibble on the floor, pick it back up and focus on how to teach the Stay as you break that down into smaller steps – lowering the kibble partway, then returning to him to praise and treat if he held position, etc. At all points, we are using shaping here, which means we are rewarding baby steps, or successive approximations, as we go along. So whenever you notice a point at which your dog tends to break her Stay, think about how you can break that into smaller steps to make it easier for her. Once you can put a piece of kibble on the floor and return to your dog to release him from the Stay to eat the kibble, you are in position to start adding a piece of kibble each time thereafter. On the next Stay, lay down two pieces of kibble 6 inches apart, then return to praise and release with “Find it!” and let your dog go eat both. Then add a third and fourth piece of kibble and start to lay them down further apart, in a bit of a trail for your dog to eat when released with the “Find it!” cue. As you and your dog move further along in this game, add kibble and increase the difficulty of hiding spots. Because our dogs are allowed on our couch, I have hidden kibble all over the cushions, under tables and along nose-level shelves in our games. Use your own house rules to determine where you hide the kibble.
In its completed form, the joy for me in this game is seeing my dogs (currently I have two and they play the game together) sit with baited anticipation and happiness as they watch me hide 100 pieces of kibble throughout my house. I walk back and stand before them, like we are at the beginning of an Easter Egg hunt. With my “Find It!” cue, Amelia and Thunder Dog tear off around the house, sniffing and wagging and seeking and finding.
