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4-Legged Geocaching Partners

Texas-Jacksons
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Texas-Jacksons

+Texas-Jacksons

Posted
Posted

Anyone want to share pictures and stories about their 4-legged caching partners?

 

Tasha goes nuts if I say GEOCACHING or show her the GPS! She runs for the door, jumps and runs in a circle so she isn't left behind. She has been with me for all cache hunts except those that I had to fly to. I now have to Spell g-e-o-c-a-c-h-i-n-g in front of her.

We adopted her from the pound last summer and she has been the best dog ever! She is truly my best friend. I have attached a picture of Tasha eagerly waiting our next trip!

 

txjacksons.gif

 

partner.jpg

 

[This message was edited by texas-jacksons on April 09, 2002 at 08:13 PM.]

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Moun10Bike

Moun10Bike

Posted
Posted

Well, I hate to admit it, but my dog, Chevy, is a complete weenie. He hates to ride in the car, for one (he will actually try to run away and hide if he knows that you are going for a drive). He refuses to look out the window, and will actually bury his head in your armpit to avoid seeing things. Have you ever heard of a dog doing that?

 

When we finally get to the trail, he does okay, but gets freaked out if we encounter people or other dogs. Also, being a miniature dachshund, he has to work pretty hard to keep up if the cache requires any sort of a hike. He gets cold pretty easily and starts shivering, and whenever I sit down to sign the logbook, he jumps into my lap and wants to be held.

 

So, I guess that you could say that he's not exactly the ideal caching partner. But you know what? I still love him to death and look forward to taking him geocaching with me whenever I can! I have even set him up with his own profile. I have other pictures of him here in case anyone is interested.

 

24_700.gif

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Walkin Stick

Walkin Stick

Posted
Posted

At 11 years of age, Jenni is finally to the point where she tires before I do... but she still starts the morning a lot more enthusiastically that I ever have (or will). We've always spent the weekends exploring and/or hiking... geocaching has just given us new destinations... but one mention of the word 'auto' and she's heading for the door.

 

Jenni (and Walkin Stick)

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Eagles may soar but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines!

_____________________________________________________

 

The early bird gets the worm but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese!

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Golden Retrievers

+Golden Retrievers

Posted
Posted

Our 12 year old Golden thinks geocaching was invented for her. She goes with us even if we have to lift her over rocks and up small banks.

When she sees our geocaching backpack sitting by the frontdoor she runs in circles and tries to speak. She has bad hips but this never has stopped her from long caches hikes or from the occasional lucky swim.

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Dakota Ladybug

+Dakota Ladybug

Posted
Posted

My Golden Retriever is 10 years old and loves to go with me everywhere I go. He's in alot better shape than I when it comes to hiking the steep terrain. I love this new outdoor hobby, I get to spend even more quality time with my dog!

 

141495_200.jpg

 

[This message was edited by Dakota Ladybug on April 03, 2002 at 08:21 PM.]

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Zuckerruebensirup

Zuckerruebensirup

Posted
Posted

Whenever possible I bring Daisy along with me when Geocaching. Our very first cache find (in a park that doesn't allow dogs...so she had to wait in the vehicle), the item I took was a package of "Canine Carryouts" (chicken strip dog treats). After seeing those, she gave me her immediate endorsement of the sport, even though she didn't get to help sign the log. icon_wink.gif

 

239583_200.jpg

 

[This message was edited by Zuckerruebensirup on April 09, 2002 at 10:31 PM.]

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Zuckerruebensirup

Zuckerruebensirup

Posted
Posted

Whenever possible I bring Daisy along with me when Geocaching. Our very first cache find (in a park that doesn't allow dogs...so she had to wait in the vehicle), the item I took was a package of "Canine Carryouts" (chicken strip dog treats). After seeing those, she gave me her immediate endorsement of the sport, even though she didn't get to help sign the log. icon_wink.gif

 

239583_200.jpg

 

[This message was edited by Zuckerruebensirup on April 09, 2002 at 10:31 PM.]

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OFF RODE

OFF RODE

Posted
Posted

We always take Cody the Aussie dog on hunts. He loves to ride and has a ball when we take off on foot for the final search. I think he even has some idea of what we are doing. Hes not too keen on some of these Arizona plants tho...Cody the Aussie Dog with Charlotte the CACHE Bear TB.

 

"You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." Yogi Berra

JeepNAz@aol.com

 

[This message was edited by JeepNAz on April 05, 2002 at 11:23 AM.]

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Kodak's4

+Kodak's4

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by 3fros:

Don't have a dog yet, but we are thinking of getting a basenji.

 

While we're on the subject of dogs, I've been wondering if anyone has been able to teach their dog to sniff out tupperware containers, trash bags, or ammo boxes.

 

Yes. I've got Kodak pretty reliably finding both rubbermaid tubs and ammo cans. Ammo cans seem to be pretty easy, they must be very stinky. Rubbermaid is surprisingly easy. My dad says he bets the dog can smell the outgassing plasticizer.

 

Now, getting him to sniff one out in the field (as opposed to during training in the house or backyard) is a slightly different matter. We're still working on getting him to pay enough attention when there are a lot of distractions. But he's a Golden, and he's a year old, so it's pretty hard work for him.

 

-Paul

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GeoStars

GeoStars

Posted
Posted

We had a black lab for 13 years that pretty much went everywhere with us with no problem. Sadly, he died last summer. We now have two puppies that we hope to take camping, hiking and geocaching with us. Problem is, we can't seem to make it 2 miles down the road without one or both puking in the car. Anyone else have pups or dogs with queasy stomachs? Any remedies? We're planning a geocaching/highpointing outing next week and it'd be nice to take the pups with us. I don't want to stop every half-hour for clean-up duty though...

 

Hoosiermom - team leader of GeoStars

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TheGertridgeExplorers

+TheGertridgeExplorers

Posted
Posted

Our dog Sunny (lab/springer spaniel) also got car sick as a pup. Everyone said she would grow out of it and she did. My advice - don't give them "treats" in the car. Donut shops always wanted to "give the puppy a treat" and she barfed every time. When we took her with us from Ontario to Nova Scotia last summer I never fed her until we had stopped travelling for the day - water only. We never had a problem the whole trip.

Now she is 15 months old and loves going with us. She perks up her ears and heads for the door when she hears "truck". She is still too busy exploring to be much help finding caches, but that's what the kids are for! icon_wink.gif

 

- Donna G

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TheGertridgeExplorers

+TheGertridgeExplorers

Posted
Posted

Our dog Sunny (lab/springer spaniel) also got car sick as a pup. Everyone said she would grow out of it and she did. My advice - don't give them "treats" in the car. Donut shops always wanted to "give the puppy a treat" and she barfed every time. When we took her with us from Ontario to Nova Scotia last summer I never fed her until we had stopped travelling for the day - water only. We never had a problem the whole trip.

Now she is 15 months old and loves going with us. She perks up her ears and heads for the door when she hears "truck". She is still too busy exploring to be much help finding caches, but that's what the kids are for! icon_wink.gif

 

- Donna G

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GeoStars

GeoStars

Posted
Posted

I had thought about with-holding food during the ride, I'll definitely give it a try now. The last couple of weekend outings we've taken we've boarded the pups. But the kids miss them and hopefully we'll be camping instead of doing the hotel thing soon so it'll be easier to take them along. Our upcoming outing is a day trip but it'll involve lots of driving. Be a good trial run for longer trips. icon_smile.gif

 

Hoosiermom - team leader of GeoStars

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GeoStars

GeoStars

Posted
Posted

I had thought about with-holding food during the ride, I'll definitely give it a try now. The last couple of weekend outings we've taken we've boarded the pups. But the kids miss them and hopefully we'll be camping instead of doing the hotel thing soon so it'll be easier to take them along. Our upcoming outing is a day trip but it'll involve lots of driving. Be a good trial run for longer trips. icon_smile.gif

 

Hoosiermom - team leader of GeoStars

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Walkin Stick

Walkin Stick

Posted
Posted

Jenni has never had a problem with car-sickness and she has logged considerably more miles than most. (10 trips from Illinois to Oregon and back and 100+ miles almost every weekend for 11 years). The few times she has had a problem it was always after ingesting something. (Twice it was due to something she ate... twice after ingesting large amounts of salt water... she hasn't figured out that the Pacific Ocean doesn't go down quite as well as the water found in fresh water lakes and rivers.) So... I would agree with DonnaG that that might be part of the problem. I HAVE found that Jenni does want/need considerably more to drink when were on the road than when were stationary though. So, you'll probably still need to keep plenty of fresh water available. Good Luck!

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Eagles may soar but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines!

_____________________________________________________

 

The early bird gets the worm but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese!

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alienpuppy

+alienpuppy

Posted
Posted

I have two puppies (well, they just turned 2 years old... I guess they are not puppies anymore).

 

I take Betsey along geocaching as much as possible, and she seems to really like it. When ever I pull out my day-pack with all my stuff in it, she gets excited.

 

Here are some recent pics of Betsey on the "hunt"

 

Betsey barks at the "anti-cachers"

Betsey looks over the edge

 

Our other pup, Bean, only gets to go if his Mom (my wife) comes along. Two dogs is too much to juggle when you have a GPS in one hand, and a digital camera in the other, and a map in the other... icon_smile.gif

 

Here is an older picture of Bean... he's been since, but this was the most recent I've posted:

 

Beanie looks for a prize.

 

They both love to get out and hike around. Betsey even starts barking when I lag behind too much.

 

/AlienPuppy

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alienpuppy

+alienpuppy

Posted
Posted

I have two puppies (well, they just turned 2 years old... I guess they are not puppies anymore).

 

I take Betsey along geocaching as much as possible, and she seems to really like it. When ever I pull out my day-pack with all my stuff in it, she gets excited.

 

Here are some recent pics of Betsey on the "hunt"

 

Betsey barks at the "anti-cachers"

Betsey looks over the edge

 

Our other pup, Bean, only gets to go if his Mom (my wife) comes along. Two dogs is too much to juggle when you have a GPS in one hand, and a digital camera in the other, and a map in the other... icon_smile.gif

 

Here is an older picture of Bean... he's been since, but this was the most recent I've posted:

 

Beanie looks for a prize.

 

They both love to get out and hike around. Betsey even starts barking when I lag behind too much.

 

/AlienPuppy

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basher_boy

basher_boy

Posted
Posted

I almost always go out with the dogs. I am just starting to formulate a plan about how to get the two of them to find caches. It would sure cut down on search times. A couple things that I have noticed: Pups seem to mature into their noses. I think that they only start to really develop the sense as they get to the year mark. I have noticed this from the art of finding the thrown tennis ball. Second, is that they really need to have support and practice to help them develop this skill in a manner that is helpful to geocaching. There is no doubt that they can be trained to sniff these things out (remember they have been trained with ~90% accuracy to detect cancer in humans, and with 99% accuracy to detect things such as drugs, and produce).

 

Team Rotty in NJ seems to have a pup that has been trained to find caches.

 

Peace

Basher_boy, Pandagirl, and The Kids (aka the pups)

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Walkin Stick

Walkin Stick

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by basher_boy:

There is no doubt that they can be trained to sniff these things out (remember they have been trained with ~90% accuracy to detect cancer in humans, and with 99% accuracy to detect things such as drugs, and produce).

 

So all we need to do is get anyone who places and/or visits a cache to leave some (illegal) drugs... Sounds good to me!

icon_razz.gif

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Eagles may soar but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines!

_____________________________________________________

 

The early bird gets the worm but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese!

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Walkin Stick

Walkin Stick

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by basher_boy:

There is no doubt that they can be trained to sniff these things out (remember they have been trained with ~90% accuracy to detect cancer in humans, and with 99% accuracy to detect things such as drugs, and produce).

 

So all we need to do is get anyone who places and/or visits a cache to leave some (illegal) drugs... Sounds good to me!

icon_razz.gif

 

_____________________________________________________

 

Eagles may soar but weasles don't get sucked into jet engines!

_____________________________________________________

 

The early bird gets the worm but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese!

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DxChallenged

+DxChallenged

Posted
Posted

We like to take Foo the wonder dog...a pom with an attitude.....but we have to watch the of the time of year that we take her out caching. We took her out a few months back. Just as the sledding hills were melting and the creeks were full. By the time we finished 2 caches she looked like a tea bag on a leash.

 

Then there was the time that Fearless put the wrong coordinates in the GPS and we all scouraged a swamp. She ended up becomming a bur magnet that day....She was wagless for 2 full days as that was how long it took to get the burrs out.

 

Dx

 

"Have you no news on your travels?" the Book of fairy & folk tales of Ireland (1888)

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blscearce

+blscearce

Posted
Posted

I have two Rottweilers, Bronx and Buffy. The parks around here (east San Francisco Bay) are great: almost all of them allow dogs, and most of the dog-allowing parks permit you to take your dog off-leash once you're out of the parking/picnicking area. On the down side, the EBRPD also allows cattle grazing (to prevent grass fires in the hot dry summer), and Bronx would happily get his empty head kicked in if I didn't leash him when they're nearby.

 

I don't have any geocaching pictures of the dogs, but I expect to have some over the next couple of months as various Oakland-area disposable cameras are retrieved and developed. Here's a picture of Bronx, showing what it's like to play "fetch" with a Rottweiler:

tball.jpg

 

So far, neither dog has learned to sniff out Tupperware, but Buffy is clever and I'm trying to train her. Ask me again at the end of the year.

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Kodak's4

+Kodak's4

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by basher_boy:

Second, is that they really need to have support and practice to help them develop this skill in a manner that is helpful to geocaching. There is no doubt that they can be trained to sniff these things out (remember they have been trained with ~90% accuracy to detect cancer in humans, and with 99% accuracy to detect things such as drugs, and produce).

 

 

We've been using clicker training to train Kodak to do everything from sit on command to close up doors when we ask, and now to hunt caches. A small 'clicker' is used to mark when the dog does the right thing. The click is followed up with a reward.

 

To train a dog to sit, take a clicker and a handful of treats. Call the dog, and show him/her the treats. Eventually, the dog will sit. As soon as the dog sits, click the clicker and give the dog a treat. It won't take long before the dog figures out that the game is 'sit'. You won't need to force him into position, just be patient and wait until he does it on his own.

 

As you train the dog to do more stuff, the dog gets better at what we call 'the clicker game'.

 

I trained Kodak to find rubbermaid tubs by getting out the clicker and treats, then throwing a rubbermaid tub on the floor. Natural curiousity led him to sniff it - click. Then I moved it around. Each time he touches it, he gets clicked. In three minutes he had the idea and on subsequent sessions, I'd *hide* the tub and he'd have to search for it.

 

Ammo cans were next. Kodak finds them easily, I suspect they are very smelly. Even outdoors he homes in on them like he's got ammo can radar.

 

So far we've spent about an hour and a half in lots of short sessions, and he's reliably searching for (and finding) stuff in our backyard, even when it's covered/hidden.

 

The biggest problem is that a one year old golden is pretty easily distracted. He knows what's in the yard, so he doesn't get sidetracked. In the field, it's all new and it's pretty hard to get him to stay on task.

 

Anyone else working on this? What techniques are you using?

 

-Paul (of Kodak's 4)

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TheBeans

+TheBeans

Posted
Posted

We have taken Beanie, our non-fierce- chicken-of-a-pom on all but two cache-hunts that we've been on. She enjoys the walks so much and although she's fairly chicken around other dogs and she hasn't sniffed out a cache box yet, she loves to follow her people into the brush looking for it! So, to give her some honor in this world (because little chicken dogs rarely get any respect!) we created a doggie-themed cache:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=17734

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Big Bird and son

Big Bird and son

Posted
Posted

As a bomb dog handler for my department, it wouldn't be that difficult to teach your dog to sniff out tupperware. But, since the caches are placed in many different types of containers there is the problem. The dog would need to be trained to alert to many different containers with different odors. The more odors = the more training.

 

Put out a piece of tupperware and have the dog come by it and place his nose on it and then reward him with a high pitched "gooooooooood boy" and then give the reward such as the treat or the toy. And, keep doing this over and over until he sits when he sniffs the tupperware. When he is about 99% accurate then make the "hides" more difficult. You will need to train in the environment that the hides are in at the end of the training. This process will take a lot of time and energy.

 

The best way would be for the dog to alert on human odor. But there is another problem. Since human odor goes down the longer it is exposed the older caches would have less of a scent for the dog to alert to. Patrol K9s can also do evidence recovery. The dog is trained to find human scent.

 

You would also need a dog with a great play drive that would like to be rewarded with a toy or food. Finding this type of dog is another problem. Very few make that cut. A rat has the best sniffer of all animals. The second best is a pig.

 

I once heard of a burglar that had trained his dog to alert to paper $$$$$. I also know of a dog that can alert to mercury. I thought of training a dog to alert to ginseng so I could make a little extra cash while out in the woods. This would be easy (I believe).

 

The one thing you could do is to have the dog go out and be nosey and he might come across the cache just out of luck because of the different odor in the woods.

 

So to answer the question: Yes, you can train your dog to alert to caches. I think it would be a lot of work. I would rather find it myself.

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alienpuppy

+alienpuppy

Posted
Posted

quote:
Originally posted by TheBeans:

We have taken Beanie, our non-fierce- chicken-of-a-pom on all but two cache-hunts that we've been on. She enjoys the walks so much and although she's fairly chicken around other dogs and she hasn't sniffed out a cache box yet, she loves to follow her people into the brush looking for it! So, to give her some honor in this world (because little chicken dogs rarely get any respect!) we created a doggie-themed cache:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=17734

 

One of my dogs is named "Bean", but we call him "Beanie" most of the time!.

 

Got this perfect picture of Betsey this weekend when we were all geocaching:

 

273472_300.jpg

 

/Alienpuppy

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300mag

+300mag

Posted
Posted

Everytime I say "want to go for a cache" Even if Rambo my yellow labrador is sleeping he'll get right up and go and show me is leash. I am really amazed at is courage.I remember placing a cache one winter. I was looking for a adequate spot so we hiked through waist high snow over 2 mountains.I was tired but the dog was even more. I then stoped to give him breaks. He never stayed behind actually he was always stepping on my boots. I guess he'd follow me to hell and back.

If you get burrs in your dog's or other pets hair try brushing him with baby oil. I used this for my horses and it worked well.

 

742_900.jpg

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Siberian Cacher

+Siberian Cacher

Posted
Posted

My dog rocks. She's a 17 week old Siberian Husky (living in the desert SW - go figure) and she loves going in the car and geocaching. I'm working her up toward some really long hikes and she's going to be the pack-mule with saddle bags(the sled-dog in her).

 

I like the doggie friendly caches since she can find them with her nose - saves me some searching time. She loves the car and loves the exercise - except for the occasional cacti...

 

With man, it is impossible, but with God, all things are possible!

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