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You Cheating Dog!


necron

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My caching buddy Halley has found three caches on her own; all had been found and handled within the few preceding days. Most of the time she's much more interested in hiking, and resents that I've stopped to pointlessly shuffle around in one place.

 

What's interesting is that she has an uncanny knack for picking out the trail, even in very difficult locations. I assume that she smells the way that people have previously gone, but I don't really know. As denali7 also said, she's great at backtracking to the car. That's just a natural talent she's always had, even as a puppy.

 

By the way, when we hike or geocache, she wears a nice bright red backpack. She carries some extra water, it makes her easier to see, but most importantly, I've never yet met someone on the trail who was afraid of a dog wearing a backpack!

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Hi. I'm the family dog, Rosita. Mom let me use this account to post a note.

You should get your own account. It's kinda fun.

 

I'm not much for the long car rides (I get car sick), but I absolutely love going on the trail. The best time I had was looking for a box in the tall tall grass last summer. Never found the box, but I sure had fun looking.

 

The Boss is going to start me off with finding some ammo cans this month, and see if I can correctly find them. From there, we move to tupperware. I'm not sure how I'm going to do with the film canisters, though.

 

My thoughts are that sometimes people go caching with other people. If one of them is a better seeker than the other and consistently finds the cache first, does that make the person who's not so good a cheater? Cheating who?

 

After all, it's not about the numbers. wink.gifpuppy.gif

 

Woof!

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I'm not much for the long car rides (I get car sick), but I absolutely love going on the trail. The best time I had was looking for a box in the tall tall grass last summer. Never found the box, but I sure had fun looking.

Hey this is Ginger the traildog, I'd say I'm sneaking into mom's account but I guess it belongs to all of us since I *AM* part of the canine crew!

 

I just wanted to ask if you've tried eating some ginger before a car ride? No, not me Ginger, but the root Ginger? It is supposed to be good for us dogs to help settle our stomachs and prevent carsickness. You can either eat some gingersnaps (make sure they have real ginger in them!) or you can take a ginger capsule or even drink some ginger tea if you like the taste. They also make ginger supplements specifically for dogs. It can work really well!!

 

Also wanted to post this nice photo of me, since someone mentioned their dog (also a Golden too I think!) wears a red backpack when out hiking. I also wear a red backpack, and I am working on getting a geocaching badge so I carry specific items in my pack too...

 

ginrocksblu.jpg

 

This is a photo from a past vacation, in the Smoky Mountains.

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I will tell you that dogs make good diversions for muggles. If you're near a cache when one comes by blame the dog. Say she lost her favorite ball or stick and we're looking for it etc. Dogs are also good for sholdering the blame on a DNF or a lost TB. Post a note like "I had to go before finding the cache because my dog started chasing a groundhog" or "sorry my dog ate your geocoin". Those without dogs can interchange "dogs" with the word "kid" with similar results.

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What's interesting is that she has an uncanny knack for picking out the trail, even in very difficult locations.

My constant caching companion does this too. He finds the hidden side trail I'm looking for, almost always picks the corect trail at a fork. Really makes me wonder sometimes. He has only helped in finding 2 or 3 caches out of 600+, one was a micro 9' off the ground in a knothole on top of an angled fallen tree, go figure.

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We take our dog Shadow with us when we cache. She hasn't found any caches yet, but loves to go out on the trails. When it's allowed, she is off the leash, but never gets far away from us. She will run ahead some, but if we don't catch up within a few minutes, she comes back to find us with a "Come on what's taking you so long!" look on her face! :)

 

She loves to cache so much that if we aren't taking her with us, we have to sneak our cache bag out of the house. If she sees us with it, she knows we're going caching and will throw a fit if we don't take her.

 

She's 11 years old now, but still hikes like a trooper! Oh, and she is a mixed breed (looks like border collie and miniture doberman) from the Humane Society. :P

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I used to take my greyhound, Hammer, geocaching. He never found a cache-- sighthounds are best known for their ability to chase and catch stuff that's already moving. But there's nothing wrong with teaching a dog to sniff out an ammo can or plasticware. A friend of mine was thinking of training her dobie to sniff out film canister plastic.

 

I think daschunds would make good geocache dogs because they tunnel to find stuff, though their legs are kind of short, so you'd want to make sure they were in good shape before heading out. Most hounds have a good sense of smell and tend to enjoy finding stuff, but there *is* that laziness factor.

 

And of course, having your dog help you back to the car isn't cheating-- it's just good sense! Your GPS's trackback feature isn't cheating, and I know I'd trust a dog's nose more than a GPS's satellite lock! A dog is accurate to less than 3 feet, especially if there are treats in the car.

 

With all geodogs, please please please watch the weather and your dog's health. We almost lost Hammer in 2003 to heat stroke while attempting to find a geocache that was a longer hike in much hotter weather than we'd expected. When I say we almost lost him, I mean he was in a cascade system failure that should have killed him and we got lucky-- REALLY lucky. However, it severely depressed his health and vigor. He passed away a few weeks ago at the ripe old age of 13.

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I will tell you that dogs make good diversions for muggles.  If you're near a cache when one comes by blame the dog.  Say she lost her favorite ball or stick and we're looking for it etc.  Dogs are also good for sholdering the blame on a DNF or a lost TB.  Post a note like "I had to go before finding the cache because my dog started chasing a groundhog" or "sorry my dog ate your geocoin".  Those without dogs can interchange "dogs" with the word "kid" with similar results.

Yep... I was hunting for a cache at the the College of DuPage (Chicago subs) a few summers back and a nice young lady approached. So I yelled for the dog and she came running. She stopped to pet Geddy and we started talking. Finally she asked what I was doing so I fessed up and she helped me search for the cache.

It led to a few phone conversations and "meetings" <_<:blink: . Geocaching with benefits!!

 

So bring the dog!! You might get lucky!

 

111848171qFJwnJ_ph.jpg

 

Photo size reduced to protect the guilty, I mean innocent!

Edited by Special Ed
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We like to bring our golden, but how does one handle a dog who doesn't like to travel in cars to cache sites?

It depends if the dog 'doesn't like' it because they're carsick or some other reason...

 

If they're carsick, as someone else mentioned give them ginger snaps-- or ginger tea, or ginger ale if it contains real ginger, or a ginger supplement. They even make ginger supplements specifically for dogs...

 

If they're scared of the car just take them on a lot of short rides to fun places at first.

 

If they're overexcited give them something to do such as practice obedience/tricks in the car or give them a chew toy or chew bone.

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