Dog-nose

While Colonel John W. Sink, th’ eminent Grand Island cigar manufacturer, was out “dog-nosing” jack rabbits th’ other night, a glee club serenaded his home for two hours without response.

Source: wiktionary

They come without being called, dog-nosing the air as though they sense a hard surface upon which they can lean or dash their heads.

Source: wiktionary

And now here she was, wearing upon the delicate health of her hostess ; dependent upon the surgery of a more than rural doctor, who said he had dog-nosed the case ; and reduced entirely to her imagination and the daily mail (it seemed to make everything worse that it was brought five miles by a stage-coach) for any knowledge of her now sacred and absorbing interests at Fairharbor.

Source: wiktionary

So I dog-nosed my case, as it were, and proved to her that it was something that couldn’t be reached by boneset tea.

Source: wiktionary