Follow my lead
Teach your dog basic targeting – get her to follow your fingers with her nose. This can come in handy in all kinds of situations where you need to place your dog into a particular position, on the scales at the vet or the back seat of the car, and can also form the basis for teaching other tricks or agility.
Begin with a pocket full of small but firm treats – nothing slippery if you can help it. Take out a treat and hold it in-between your index and middle fingers and hold them out, this makes quite a distinctive gesture that your dog will soon come to recognise. With great showiness put your gun shaped fingers in front of your dog. She should be interested in the treat you are holding and come to investigate. As soon as her nose touches your fingers click (or say Good) and give her a treat from your other hand. Try to hang onto the treat tucked between your fingers (not always possible with an inquisitive puppy!). Repeat the process again a few times until your dog starts to get the idea, then move your hand away from your dog as she begins to approach it. Make her follow it for a few inches until she touches it with her nose, click or praise and treat from your other hand.
The idea is to build up the amount of time your dog has to spend following your fingers with her nose until she gets the treat. Most dogs pick this up pretty quickly – make it more challenging by leading her round objects, over and under things, and moving your hand up and down and side to side. As your dog becomes more familiar with the exercise begin removing the treat from between your fingers. This is why you have been treating always from the other hand – your dog should quickly come to realise that following the empty fingers still gets the reward. When your dog is becoming very reliable start to treat every other time, make the treating more random so that she can never be sure whether she will get a treat or not. You will want to be able to use this technique at all kinds of unexpected times when you may not have anything to treat with.