The Other Stu

I'm disappointed with the French. I would have thought caching was just the type of thing to do in the vast sprawling countrysides. One of the biggest problems with the UK is that we're running out of space (see my latest DNF). In France, they have the culture, the space and definitely the hidey-holes to make geocaching a national sport!

You are SO wrong with this statement. People should be careful in this thread that they don't start offending responsible dog owners. We are not all bad, and with the huge volume in numbers of dogs as pets, it should be recognised that problem dogs are in the minority. Point taken and accepted. I'll humbly admit I was wrong with that statement so please accept my apologies. Please don't flame me, I'm just putting my tuppence worth in. I probably didn't mean it in this way. I know that many owners don't allow their dogs off leads for many, many reasons (and that's a good thing - there's nothing worse than an out of control dog and you can't be blamed for something your dog did either) I also totally agree with the points raised above and after further thought it's almost certain that this dog has done this before. Also, dog owners may (or may not) back me up here, but in the past I've found that dogs ON leads can often be more aggressive. My current pooch (Dalmatian) isn't aggressive on the lead but often has completely odd behaviour. I've also found that other dogs on leads are much less friendly on the lead too. I'm wondering if this is why the dogs in question (it appears there are more than just this one) have been biting? This is always going to be an emotive subject (I've seen these in doggy forums before too) because what one owner thinks is responsible is different to another. As before though, report it. Next time it could be your child (or one of mine). Regards "Flamed of Bedfordshire"

As someone who did the cache yesterday (and spotted the "Guard Dogs" sign not a million miles away) I would like to add my 2 pence worth. We're currently on our second dog. Our first was a rescue Boxer. Charming dog, absolutely lovely with kids and babies alike. Obviously we were careful that the kids weren't left with her alone (I've always believed that ANY dog can turn). The problem was that she just did not like little dogs. She would attack any dog that was smaller than her (this is quite common with boxers I believe). For this reason, we had to really keep an eye on her. The one time she managed to get away (slipped her lead) she attacked a small dog (s***zu or something). She didn't do any damage (she was old and hardly had any teeth left) HOWEVER, the woman owner reported us to the Police. They came round, read us the riot act and then went away to decide whether or not they would charge us. We then received a letter telling us that she was going to prosecute anyway (as well as other solicitors letters). Let me point out at this stage that there was NO physical damage to the dog. This lady was suing us for her dog's STRESS! This may seem a bit odd, but it was a matter of hundreds of pounds at this stage (fortunately for us we had insurance) Anyway, upshot of this is unfortunately our dog died (one of the reasons we later found out that she was aggressive to other dogs was because she had Cancer which wasn't showing up) so the case was dropped. If it had gone ahead as a minimum my wife would have received a caution. Now I'm not sure if anyone understands that being a registered childminder means basically no criminal record, but even worse we would have a registered dog in the house which has a black mark against it (a real no-no). She never went out without a Muzzle ever again (I bought one of ebay for about 6 pounds - less than a months insurance) I know this has gone OT a bit (sorry) BUT what it does point out is that if a dog is dangerous (or aggressive) then the Police WILL get involved and DO take it seriously. REPORT THEM! IF THIS DOG ATTACKS A CHILD, IT COULD BE FAR WORSE! Muzzles are cheap, effective and don't hurt the animal. If the fella had this dog on a lead in this area then he obviously knew it was aggressive. Unfortunately it's owners like this that give dogs a bad name.

Dunno if it's any help to anyone but DirectFoto are selling 1gb Viking SD Cards (5 years warranty) for £17.99 including P&P http://www.directfoto.co.uk/productdetails...products_ID=576

Only if it includes your latest impossible cache I'm working on it! Stu

We'd be happy to help (we're about to set up our first few anyway so a couple extra wouldn't harm) (oops - should point out we are in LB and I work in Hemel so anywhere in between is good) We were disappointed to see Highs and Lows disappear.... although there were a couple of others nearby, one of them was impossible to find and the other was a micro. It also made the "3 peaks challenge".

I dunno if anyone else has had any trouble with forums software, but it appears there were some virtual frame bugs in IE6. People then rewrote their html/php to take this into account. only Microsoft have now fixed it. A typical example is here http://www.geocaching.com/map/getmap.aspx?...&lon=-0.6618000 Stu

It all seems ok on the Geko Problem is that if we use AB°CD.EFG , for some unknown reason E will only give me the option of 0-5 Hence the reason I can put in the car park but not the cache. That was the correct cache (sorry I should have added that)

Help! I tried to find my first cache the other day and had a nightmare with my Garmin Geko 101 Firstly, I was told to park @ 51°57.183'N, 0°41.475'W Which is fine. I found that (although was a few hundred yards out!) Then told to go to N 51° 57.108 W 000° 40.921 This is where the fun started. Whether I am doing something wrong with the GPS unit I don't know but I am unable to put in the 40.921 bit in the W string. My GPS says that I can have the following: First Number 1 to 10 Second Number 1 to 10 PERIOD First number 1 to 5 Second number 1 to 10 third number 1 to 10 Now as you can see, after the period, I've been told to put a 9 but I can't. Is this to do with the way the Geko is set up? Am I supposed to be reading the coordinates differently? Is this something to do with True North, Magnetic North etc? I'd love to know if anyone else can put in the second set of coordinates into their GPS unit successfully please (especially a Geko) Thanks Stu (SSC&

Just for your information, the Geko 101 is $75 in Radio Shack if you can find one. I'm not saying it's any better, but if you have a Radio Shack near you then it might be a good option. It's not available online unfortunately, only in store. I bought one last week (whilst visiting the States)