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Geocaching Dog


CrkrJim

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Perhaps this is common but I thought it was very interesting. My sister in law was down for a visit a few months ago and we got her into geocaching.

 

We were talking last night and she mentioned that she has gotten a friend of hers involved. As she was relating some stories about their hunts, she mentioned that her friend's dog has been a big help. Naturally, I assumed keeping varmints away in the woods etc but she said no, a help in finding the geocache. In fact, there were several instances where the dog found the cache before they did.

 

I asked if the dog's name got logged as well :grin: . She said yes, they log their names and the dog gets credit for the find when appropriate.

 

Just curious, how many of you out there have a dog that can find geocaches?

 

Jim

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Ellie has helped me find a few caches. I think she zeros in on the scent of the last person to visit the cache. Even then, I have to watch closely, because she doesn't bark or anything. She just acts 'interested'. I've been thinking of setting up her own account. That way, she would get recognition for her finds.

 

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I love taking my dog Ollie Bean geocaching with me. He has a great time and so do I.

 

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Ok...he didn't reaaally find those caches. I did. He does like to check them out though.

 

If caches smelled liked rats, there would be no cache unfound! Mostly Ollie likes the sights and scents of the woods. Picking the beggar lice out of his coat afterwards isn't so fun for me though. :grin:

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My standard poodle Aero loves to cache & quite often will nose out the hide before I find it. Her best find to date was made under pretty adverse weather conditions when she was almost 6 months old at the Gold Mine cache in the mountains north of Palmer, Alaska. The cache had real treasure in it - best swag I've ever found! You see, Aero had met Moun10Bike & GlobalGirl a few days earlier when the whole Alaska Cache'n'Dash '05 team stayed at our house one night. I believe she found the 'traveling cache' atop the main cache container because Global Girl's scent was on it - and Global Girl had played with her just a few days earlier. Great training tool, with terrific results in this case.

 

The cache log tells the rest of the story - Aero's been my steady caching partner ever since!

 

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Aero enthusiastically flies to the next cache!

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My dog Mollie has actually found a few caches before I spotted them. She'll walk up to the cache and start pawing at it. If there is something covering it, she'll push it aside to get to the cache. So far she's only found caches in nature type areas. I think she smells the human scent around the cache area.

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Miko comes with me about 85% of the time, but she's an old girl (14) and it seems that arthritis is starting to kick in big-time, so I'm only taking her out on the shorter hikes and only when she's up for it. I miss my caching partner the other 15% of the time.

 

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Edited by DammitNanet
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It looks like several of you have dogs that do the same thing. This dog is actually a trained search and rescue dog. It's homing in on the human scent. One of the interesting aspects is that the dog won't bother with animal scents.

 

Since several have dogs that also are good at cache hunting, I think it's safe to say that search and rescue training is not a requirement for a geocaching dog! :lol: Although, such training certainly doesn't hurt.

 

My sister in law is a veternarian so has many animals at the house including a couple of dogs. I've seen them in action in the woods and they're more into romping up and down the wooded hills. Haven't seen them geocaching though, so not sure what they would do.

 

Thanks for the replies. We don't have dogs (don't think our cats are interested in hunting geocaches :lol: ) so I would never have thought about dogs on the hunting team. Sounds like it can work pretty good as well as an opportunity for the dog(s) to get out for more than a walk around the block.

 

Good hunting,

 

Jim

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Our geo-pooch is a 3 year old Alaskan Husky named Key, aka Hou(n)dini for her exceptional skill at escaping :lol:. She's a real sweetie, and a little special since she only has one eye - lost the other to a rose bush thorn when she was 9 weeks old, bless her heart of gold!

 

She's crap at finding caches, but danged good at helping haul my butt up mountains, lol! Our 7 year old is supposed to be in charge of the leash when we have her out caching, but I gladly take over when the trail is going uphill!

 

Me no dummy :lol:

 

I do love taking her caching, since she's a husky she loves to run, and that means she can't be off a leash at home, but when we're out on a trail and she's not so sure of where she's at, she can be off the leash and she runs and runs and runs.... in circles! She runs maybe 40 or 50 feet from us and then circles back to make sure we're still there and joyously jumps around when she meets us again and takes off some more. She's also very protective of us and tried to eat a cow all by herself when she thought it was menacing to me... I only worry about her running into a moose or bear in the woods here. I love seeing her free, though, it's just beautiful to watch!

 

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Pearl has accompanied me on most of my finds. She has yet to actually locate a cache but she is great at reverse bushwhacking to get out of the woods. She's also a great muggle distractor. People focus on her and forget to ask me why I am walking in circles staring at the ground.

 

I'm Ready!!

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Let's go!!

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