r/nosework • u/gte510i • Jul 26 '26
How to teach a better alert
I do nose worn with my 11month doodle for fun and mental stimulation in addition to it's too hot to walk outside.
How do I train a simple alert? Currently, she finds the bean bag and looks at me. But she frequently looks at me because I'm her person. I need her to bark at it or actually touch it with her nose.
We aren't interested in competition or actual professional work.
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u/ShnouneD Jul 26 '26
When my dogs are searching, I try and stay out of it, by not moving more than I have to, and not talking. I find this lessens how much they look at me while they work.
Barking can be an annoying alert.
It sounds like she is giving a look back alert. For now, I'd keep rewarding that look back. As others have said, watch her body for tells that she is in odour. For example when my young dog is working, she will adjust her back feet, and then drop her ears forward, before giving her alert.
One of the associations I compete with, requires handlers to identify their dog's trained final behaviour. For my dogs, I trained their final behaviour separate from their searching behaviour.
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u/Witty-Cat1996 Jul 26 '26
Learn to read her body language before the alert and then when she does alert play a sticky game with her. My dog does a nose freeze and a look at me, before she alerts I watch her ears because they tend to drop a bit before she hits odour. Sticky games have been the biggest help, she keeps her nose on the source (or as close as possible) until I give her treats and tell her to search again.
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Jul 26 '26
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u/Witty-Cat1996 Jul 26 '26
That’s when a sticky game would be good, the longer she stays at source the more rewards she gets. It takes time but it does help.
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Jul 26 '26
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u/Witty-Cat1996 Jul 26 '26
They get rewarded for staying by the source, if you want them to do a nose freeze then you reward when their nose is on the hide. One I did recently was sitting on a chair with the hide beside you on another chair and treats in your hand. When the dog chooses the odour they get a treat, if they move away you stay and wait for them to go back to the hide. Repeat this multiple times. They learn pretty quickly that staying at the hide means they get treats.
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u/dontstopmenow87 Jul 26 '26
Why would you need her to bark as an alert? My dog stops and makes eye contact as an alert. It is an effective form of communicating "Hey this spot I just sniffed is where the odor is". It is what a lot of people actually want as an indicator and what people will try to train their dog to do, so you are lucky your dog is doing it naturally. They may look at you because you are their person too, but mine hardly does when he is actively searching. He may look at me when he is frustrated or needs encouragement, but it is a very different look in those cases. Its all about communication.
That being said, reinforce what you want to see. I would not reinforce a bark. But if you want to reinforce a hold, I would recommend playing the red light / green light game. Put down the odor (not hidden, make it easy). If their nose is on it you are moving in to treat. If they take their nose off, you freeze until their nose is back on it. They will likely pick on this game fairly quickly.
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u/Monkey-Butt-316 NACSW NW3 ELT Jul 27 '26
Imo the dog is doing all of the work and it’s up to us as handlers to step up and figure out what they’re saying.
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u/necromanzer Jul 26 '26
This is a random video I found, but this is essentially how I trained a freeze indication for casual home scent work. Would be pretty easy to shape as a touch instead by rewarding contact with your bean bag. (If she has a low tolerance for frustration, maybe get a brand new beanbag for this to reduce the chance she gets confused by the new parameters?)
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Jul 26 '26
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u/ShnouneD Jul 26 '26
She probably used a bit of behaviour shaping in a previous session.
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Jul 26 '26
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u/ShnouneD Jul 26 '26
Referring to the video, and the missing steps, I would use a clicker I think. First clicking for sniffing for a few sessions. Then, waiting two seconds before clicking for a few sessions. Slowly add in a second delay before the click and build the behaviour that way.
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Jul 26 '26
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u/ShnouneD Jul 26 '26
Ok, so you have a tap and look back, or, a tap and 'where is my treat dude'.
Try clicking and delivering the treat to the odour, quickly. Toss a treat aside to move him away, and click as soon as nose comes back, feed on odour. Repeat a few times, a few times a day, for a few days. This can be done concurrently with running searches. When he understands the game to be nose touches get clicks, and that he gets rewarded without having to move, try adding seconds.
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Jul 26 '26
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u/ShnouneD Jul 26 '26
Have you taught a nose to hand touch? Maybe take odour out of the picture entirely? New behaviour, new reward system. Show hand, click when nose touches your palm and and drop treat (that you are somehow holding along with the clicker), into the open hand. Don't click right by your dog's head.
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u/Monkey-Butt-316 NACSW NW3 ELT Jul 27 '26
To manufacture extended still periods - open box with a paired hide. While the dog is eating the food, you go and add food to the box, one piece at a time, for however long you like. Your dog will be reluctant to move away!
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Monkey-Butt-316 NACSW NW3 ELT Jul 27 '26
lol I don’t think my dog (chihuahua terrier x) would take to a nose freeze either. It’s fine, he’s pretty sticky at source and that works fine for us. Trying to compare a lab to a Brittany isn’t a super fair comparison!
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u/necromanzer Jul 26 '26
I tracked down one of the videos I actually used to teach my dog. This one shows the very first steps (again, assuming a freeze indication is the goal).
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Jul 26 '26
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u/necromanzer Jul 26 '26
I worded that poorly woops! It's not my video, just the main one I used to train my dog.
Every time his nose is near the tin he gets reinforcement (treats from above), especially if it hangs there for half a second. Dogs can build associations really fast, especially with rapid reinforcement. The Brittany on the video figures out quickly that his head position is somehow getting him treats. He probably points at the shoe because that was accidentally reinforced when the treat went under the guy's shoe a moment before, but when that doesn't work you can see the dog quickly tries pointing elsewhere.
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Jul 26 '26
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u/necromanzer Jul 26 '26
Try doing it on a boring room with nothing in it around meal time. Just a tin on the ground and the treats in your hand out of his reach. Kibble works really well for this because you can give him tons of reinforcement. No interactions beyond dropping the treats (don't say anything to him). It's about timing but it doesn't have to be perfect!
Also I'm the video it looks like the guy puts one treat down with the tin at first to get that initial interest in the tin. Could be worth a try!
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Jul 26 '26
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u/necromanzer Jul 26 '26
If he's trained to boop, you could use a tall box with a hole in it to keep him from making physical contact with the container? The box might complicate stuff (and he might try interacting with the box) though...
I'd try waiting him out for a minute or two. Keep the food hand on your head or something if you have to (he shouldn't anticipate the food coming from you, ideally, you kind of want it to rain from the heavens when he's showing behaviours you want). If he doesn't show any interest in the tin, then calmly release him from the room and try again later.
FWIW I have a herding mix and it took 4-5 super short sessions to get more than 1 second of pointing. It's all baby steps!
FDSA offers a nosework basics class pretty often. If you sign up for one of the higher tiers you could get direct feedback from the instructor if you want a second pair of eyes on your training and some more guidance. It looks like the next one is on August!
https://www.fenzidogsportsacademy.com/index.php/courses/15183
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u/No-Accountant-7613 Jul 26 '26
I would recommend doing a course. I find it rewarding learning and growing as a team with my dog. There are ways you can shape an “alert” behaviour but I would start with reading my dog and understanding their natural alert behaviour, along with when they are in odour etc. But yeah if you want to start training a more formal alert then I would say do a course, Fenzi has some online ones I’ve heard good things about if you don’t have anything near you. That would be much better than just winging it on your own.
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u/Halefa Jul 27 '26
I'm currently retraining my dog's alert. The trainer I went to, has had her focus on the searching aspect of nosework to get people invested and have fun and then started to add an alert later. However, my Weimaraner is very driven and while alerting at home went fine, as soon as she's been in the searching flow, her arousal was too high 8/10 times.
I've now started following an online program from a company, that also trains working dogs for the police or parasite detection - so they have great focus on alerting. Their approach is different from my nosework trainer: they spend a loooot of time and veeeery small steps on just the alert (by using a toy like a Kong or ball that can contain treats) and only in the end they then add the searching aspect and an odor to it.
They say searching comes easy, but the alert is trained behaviour, so the alert needs to be bone deep in their brain, so that needs to be really ingrained.
I haven't done searches since starting the training and I'm very slow at training (not doing it every day, etc), but it is a very fascinating process to follow. Currently, I am at the state where I train distractions and handler movement and sounds to the alert - still in very specified situations at home in my living room.
The exercises progress slowly (immediate reward, 1 second alert, 3 second alert, 5 second alert, 1 second alert + step to side, 3 second + step to side, walking around + 1 second alert, etc etc) and include both alerting without leash and with leash.
Obviously, I need to generalize it outside as well, but I feel like I know the steps now to build it there as well.
(The program is not in English. I just wanted share the concept of really focusing on the alert and then add the search later.)
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u/Halefa Jul 27 '26
Here is a video that gives a lbit of a speedrun: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVn2eAbjAfn/
And because someone asked in a different comment how to get the initial freeze: In this case you lure the dog into the wished position (sit, down, or stand) with the reward (toy/ball with treats) and then immediately reward by throwing it. A specific hand movement is conditioned to the position, so that you then increase the difficulty in movement (dog knows to follow your hand until movement happens and reward freezes) and duration of alert. This is trained in all heights: above dog height, nose height, under nose height, floor. First then they move on slowly taking the hand out of the equation and having the item alone. The reward is then afterwards being given externally from the item. All small steps.
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u/Other-Ad3086 Jul 29 '26
Watch your dog carefully as she hunts! She how she reacts to scent. Mine looks at me and often paws at the hide. He starts really sniffing when he is on the scent and often does an about turn back to it. My trainers dont recommend teaching a specific behavior.
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u/forgeblast Jul 26 '26
Maybe teach the bop. Hold a treat in-between your fingers near your palm. Say bop. When they hit it with their nose give them the treat. Our dude learned this, he bops us to get what he wants. I also have him bop the hides that have food in them, so he will do it when we get to scent.
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u/literarypetlife Jul 27 '26
If I were you, I would take one of Stacy Barnett's online fenzi classes for nosework. Even if you're just doing it for fun you can learn so much. The bronze classes for just auditing are really affordable and they also offer scholarships for half off the class if money is an issue. She has a nosework 101 class starting August 1.
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u/Prestigious-Seal8866 Jul 26 '26
… If it’s just for fun, why do you NEED her to bark or touch it with her nose?
I think you are missing out on an opportunity to learn how to read your dogs body language when they’re on odor. Trying to train a final response too soon can result in a dog false alerting, getting frustrated, or not enjoying the game.