I had a german shepherd that was bonkers when it came to finding rocks I threw. They weren't big rocks more or less 1" red landscape stones. I could throw it in a pile of other stones and he would always bring it back. It took me awahile to figure out it was my scent that he was locating on the stone. If I pretended to throw it he would look untill he would finnally figure out to sniff my hand. Then I hid it in my sock and he still found it! What I am saying it you have to have them search for the item and not your scent because you will never get the results when shed hunting.

On Thursday I am picking up a 8 week old Jack Russell for tracking deer and possibly training for shed hunting too. He comes from hunting/working linage and his mom it like OCD when it comes to tracking (fox & coons) and retrieving.