Core-collapse supernovae are explosions resulting from death and collapse of massive young stars. These are typically associated with regions of ongoing star formation. The latter are generally embedded in large amount of dust, which is likely to obscured a significant fraction of core-collapse supernovae, preventing their detection in typical optical surveys. I have led a campaign aimed at monitoring a large sample of star forming galaxies at near-infrared wavelengths, where the dust obscuration is much lower. This campaign led to the discovery of some of the first near-infrared selected supernovae (Maiolino et al. 2002). These IR-selected supernovae result to be much more absorbed by dust than optically selected supernovae. These observations have enabled the (upward) revision of the supernova rate in star forming galaxies (Mannucci, Maiolino et al. 2005).