My corn snake is dumb as rocks and often I have to tap at the prey from underneath to remind him where it is. Sometimes my balls will get lost between the newspaper, too, so I just tap from underneath. They'll find it eventually if I leave them alone, but they really zero in on it if I tap where the prey is. I don't think there's anything unusual about this, though, since it's like the prey taking steps. They're pretty much built to do this I thought. Tapping certainly gets them interested. Glad to hear it worked for you.