Train the Shell Game: Go Find It!

The Shell Game in the dog trick training world is hiding a treat or scent item under one of three cups for your pup to find. It’s a really great game to play with your dog that uses his sense of smell. Ezra and I play it every morning and it’s been an excellent start to our day. It works his brain and burns through some energy. Plus, it’s cheap and easy to learn.

I recommend feeding your dog through the Shell Game, and this will article will show you how.

Why should I train my dog the Shell Game?

It’s an excellent game for canine enrichment and mental stimulation.
You let your dog use his natural instincts to sniff out a treat, which he will enjoy doing.
It will tire your dog out, and a tired dog is a good dog.
It will make dog training more fun, and make your dog work for his food without pressure.
It’s really cheap to get started – all you need are kibble and 1-3 solo cups.
It’s a great foundation to learning the “Go Find It” command.
It’s an excellent jumpstart to nose work.
It’s an easy trick to learn to obtain the AKC Dog Trick Novice and Intermediate Titles.

How to Train Go Find It with the Shell Game

This is super easy to teach your dog because it relies on his natural instincts. You don’t need any any technical skills or special equipment. All you really need is a treat or kibble and solo cups. You can do it with a scent like Birch Oil or shoe boxes too. That’s helpful for nose work training, but it’s not necessary.

Once you have decided what you want your dog to find and how you’ll conceal it, you are ready to get started!

brown long coated dog on green grass field during daytime

Step 1: Start with one cup.

You want to make it extremely simple for your dog to understand what is being asked of him. Starting with one cup makes it a no-brainer. All you have to do is:

Put kibble or a treat underneath one solo cup nearby your dog.
Wait patiently for him to get interested in the cup.
Once he knocks it over, he’ll get the treat as a reward.
Praise him and repeat.

Your dog will probably pick up on this pretty quickly with a couple repetitions. When he does, add the verbal cue “Go Find It.” At this point, you are ready to add this trick to your dog tricks list to obtain your AKC Dog Trick Novice Title. You only need to be able to find a treat under one cup for the novice title, which is awesome.

You are also ready to increase the difficulty for your pup by adding more cups.

Step 2: Add more cups one at a time.

In this step, we are going to keep adding one cup at a time until we get to three cups to play the Shell Game with. It’s pretty straight forward, and we will follow the same concepts in step 1.

But first, let’s mark the cup we have been training on with a marker to identify which cup we need to hide the treats under. Over time, the cup itself will become a scent item, because the scent of the treat will transfer to the cup. In order for the dog to learn this effectively, we don’t want to confuse him by making each cup smell like the treat. Marking the cup is an easy way to stay organized to effectively train the Shell Game.

The next steps are simple:

Put a treat under the marked cup and grab a second, clean cup.
Put them about two feet apart. Make sure you keep the treat hidden.
Tell your dog to “go find it!“
Watch your dog sniff the cups. When he finds the treats, praise him.
Then keep practicing!

At first your dog may not understand he should sniff out the cups and knock over only the one with treats. But that’s OK. Keep practicing until you can predict that he will knock over the treat cup. Once he does that, grab another cup to make it harder.

If your dog can play the Shell Game and respond to Go Find It with three cups, congratulations! You can use the Shell Game with three cups as a dog trick to obtain your AKC Dog Trick Intermediate Title.

If you enjoy playing this game, you can keep adding more cups to increase the difficulty for your dog following the same steps.

Conclusion

I hope you and your dog are enjoying playing the Shell Game. It’s such a fun, fast paced game to play with your pup that lets them use their natural instincts and get rewarded. It’s also really simple to train and doesn’t require any technical skills. All you have to do is:

Grab a solo cup.
Put a treat in and place within reach of your dog.
Tell him to Go Find It.
Let him use his nose to knock find his reward, then praise him.
Keep practicing until he starts to understand the assignment.
Then add another cup to make it harder.
Remember to mark the treat cup with a marker so that you only use that cup to hide the treat so it is less confusing for the dog.