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Cache sniffing dogs


ditchmedic

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I have cached with a friend when he had his two dogs with him. We were looking for a cache when his dog went right in the blackberry briars to a cache. Turns out it had a tennis ball and he loves tennis balls. He could smell it even in a amno can. Not sure what else would turn him on.

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I have a Jack Russel and, I live near a tennis court, I also have a thousand tennis balls in a drum.

She finds the ones humans can't.

If you put a tennis ball in a cache I guarentee she will find it.

If she is playing with a ball,and I dump it, and a few hundred on a pile she can pick out the one she was playing with.

What a nose!

 

Maggie the Dog cacher

MVC-776S.jpg

Edited by olbluesguy
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Right on! Lots of dogs have accounts here. I have a yellow Lab that goes with me all the time. She's got a fantastic nose. If I watch her when we get close to a cache, she'll snuff around, and soon zeros in on a scent. I think she detects the last person to visit the cache, if it's not been too long. Of course, the cache container , if it's sheltered out of the weather, will have the scent of several people on it, so it will be more "interesting" to her. Of course, if she's tracking a rabbit or grouse, all that goes out the door...

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Cheating? you have got to be kidding!

This is supposed to be fun. lighten up .Maybe I'll get her an account,and let her sign the logs.

I Never saw a rule that says you have to be a human to play.

 

I am kidding. Two of our locals have dogs and each one of its own account. Since it's public, here they are:

 

Mollypup

 

Miss Jax

 

I know both of them personally and have cached along with them and the humans they own. :)

 

RATTLEBARS

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Dog's find things because they have associated an odor to something positive, as in the case of the above mentioned tennis balls. You can train a dog to find ANYTHING if you associate it with some type of reword. The more they want the reward, the harder/longer they will search. Some dogs will search harder for a toy reward; some will search harder for a food reward. The hard part will be finding an odor that is common among many caches, but not so common that the dog finds it lots of places other than a cache. Paper is an example of something found in many caches, but is so common the dog will find it everywhere.

 

You could also train your dog to track. Tracking is done by following ground disturbance or providing the dog with a sample of what they are to follow. Since you don't have a sample of the cache before you find it you would have to train them to follow the ground disturbance. That will be a problem for most urban caches and rural caches that are along popular, well traveled trails. Your best bet would be to get the dog close to the cache and have them try to locate human odor or ground disturbance.

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My dog, Abbie, has actually found 2 caches for me. I suspect that she did smell the latest human scent on the ammo cans. She has yet to find a micro but then again those aren't usually hidden on the ground. At least around here they aren't. I have wondered about what scent I could use to train her to find them but that has eluded me. Paper and plastic are too common even out in the woods. The best way would probably be to train to the human scent and get friends to lay down tracks for practice. This would be similar to the training I used to do in Schutzhund.

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We find a cache by sight. A dog can find it by smell or sight.

Once he gets the Idea by seeing what you are up to,and being rewarded at the find, he can combine both senses.

After finding a few by sight I believe his nose will know what to smell for.

Who knows what that smell might be? It could be as little as the rubber gasket on an ammo can.

A tracker once told me a dog can detect one part urine in one million parts water,and are trained to find guns by the smell of gun oil.

Edited by olbluesguy
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My dog has sniffed out a few for me. It was ironic, because I had spent some time researching on how to teach him to do this, never actually did the work, and then it accidentally happened. Anyway, I think he was catching the scent of people, because all three had been touched by other cachers within the hour. Two were micros. He walked right up to them and began sniffing, and once I realized what he was doing, I rewarded him. Hopefully he will continue!

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