Your dog wants to help you find geocaches

Everytime I can’t find a cache that has a mere 1 out of 5 difficulty, it bothers me.  I mean I’m pretty technically advanced – I have a GPS that works off a multi-million dollar satellite system, a cellphone with internet and GPS, a Jeep to bus me around from cache to cache in difficult terrain…so when I can’t find a small, tupperware cache it’s disheartening to say the least.

Last time we went caching in Allegany State Park, I was with two friends and their dog, Kiba.  It was a great feeling having a dog around and I considered buying a dog just for the purpose of geocaching with me when friends are too busy to come out.  I thought, “dogs can smell diseases on people, why can’t they help find geocaches??”

I found an article today from Today’s Cacher that instructs you how to train your dog to sniff out geocaches.  The idea is to pick one kind of cache, plastic or metal, that you think you will run into most frequently and train your dog at home to find objects with the same scent.  Then, take ‘em to out to the field and do some caching.  The writeup is pretty detailed and having owned 4 dogs, I can say that it’ll probably work.  Maybe not with my dogs right now, they’re a bit old and think they’re too good for tricks…but I’m sure it’ll be useful for somebody.  I’m definitely bookmarking this for the next dog (is that morbid?)

Today’s Cacher–Online Geocaching Magazine.