aultk

Today - for the first time my Golden Retriever found a cache for me. She always gets very excited when we approach ground zero and I start doing the "Geocachers' Dance". Today I noticed that she was sniffing with great interest in some rocks a ways away from where I was looking. I went over there and there it was! When I pulled it out she sniffed it with great interest - a cache must have lots of interesting smells!. I honestly think she is understanding the game! She is becoming a Geo-Dog! I always geo-cache with our two Goldens and never tie them up - they just run around while I do the dance - they think it is great fun.

Over the past several days it seems to me that the server(s) that support geocaching.com are running very slowly. I often encounter very long (5 to 10 minute) "loading" delays. I don't think the problem is on my end since all other sites seem to load normally and I've tried three different browsers. Maybe Groundspeak needs to consider upgrading its servers? If I'm the only one having this problem I apologize.

You feed and play with your dog using various common cach containers and micro containers to hold treats. Skammers have a border collie that finds caches for them and that is the method they used. I don't think the container is the key - I think it is the smell of "other" people - usually many other people. Containers don't have a unique smell - I'm guessing here since I'm not a dog - but people do - and the smell of several different people must be distinguishable from the smell of one or two. Anyway it's fun to think about. Hard to think like a dog. Wish I could! Thanks for your reply!

What caches must have in common is the scent of many different humans (trying to think like a dog here). I often feel deprived because my dogs are clearly enjoying an entire world of smells that I have no concept of. I really wish they could tell me who has been along this trail, who went off the trial, what other dogs have been along here, - there is whole world that they know but we don't. If dogs can be trained to find drugs they can be trained to find geocaches - we just need a reliable method. My suggestion is the smell of "other" people. Thanks for your reply!

I tired searching for "dogs" but for some wierd reason the search function requires five letters in the search term (why?). I guess I could try "cannine" but somehow I doubt if it would be very successful.

I'm sure this topic has come up many times but I'm curious if there are dogs who have learned to find geocaches? When I take our dogs geocaching they are very excited as we do the "geocachers' dance" at ground zero and they sniff the cache with great interest when we find it. It must have lots of unusual smells! I'm certain that if they got the idea of what we are looking for they could take me right to the cache (at least the ones near the ground). Has anyone trained their dog to do this? What techniques did you use? If this has been discussed before I apologize - I will try to do a search of the forums but this is my first post on the forums.

For the past several days this entire site seems to be running very slowly. It doesn't seem to be a problem with other sites for me - but I spend a lot of time waiting for this site to respond. Is anyone else having this problem? Does Groundspeak need a new ISP or a faster / better server?