Many geocachers enjoy taking their furry friends along on their caching adventures, including myself. We adopted Rogue, an American Staffordshire/Boxer mix, in July 2015 from a local animal shelter; she was just over a year old. At times it seems she has an endless supply of energy. We could go for a 5 mile walk and she would just keep going. Anytime she sees us grab the backpack and put on our boots, she gets overly excited and stands at the door, waiting. She especially loves the woods, mainly because of the squirrels I assume.
Anyone who has met Rogue will tell you that she is an absolute spaz. She has about a 10 second attention span. If she sees a squirrel or other small animal, she will chase it. She has nearly pulled me over many times, too. This can make geocaching with her difficult. It often takes us longer to get to the cache because she gets so distracted. One big benefit of bringing Rogue along is that she loves to climb. She doesn’t care how steep an incline it is, she just wants to go up. She will often pull us up a hill with minimal effort.
10 days after we adopted Rogue, we packed up the car and headed to Pittsfield, Massachusetts for the Berkshire Geobash Mega Event. I don’t think Rogue had seen that many people in her entire life. She was very skittish at first, but she got accustomed to it quickly. They had a small pen there with goats and sheep, which Rogue was amazed by. We also all met Signal for the first time. As soon as Rogue saw the giant, green, fluffy frog, she thought he was her new chew toy and wanted to fling him around like a rag doll.
We have also taken Rogue caching by kayak a few times. She usually goes in my boyfriend’s kayak because he has a little extra room. This means I’m usually the one who has to actually search for and sign the cache. When kayaking, Rogue enjoys jumping out and going for a swim; which usually almost makes the kayak flip over. She also loves seeing ducks, geese and other birds, which she tries to attack, usually without success.
Rogue also came along on our trip to Denver this past summer for GeoWoodstock 14er. We made the drive from New York to Colorado in a span of about 2 ½ days. She was surprisingly well behaved in the car; sleeping for most of it. We stopped every few hours for a cache, which we were all thankful for. She accompanied us to caches in 9 new states, on a brewery tour for the lab caches, up to Pike’s Peak, to Mingo, the oldest active cache and to the St. Louis Arch.
The best adventure so far that I’ve had with Rogue was the Tough Mudder series of caches that we did in my area. 6 multi caches were placed that really challenged each cacher physically and mentally. We walked through creeks, climbed rocky embankments and hiked many, many miles. Rogue was with me for every single one of those Tough Mudder caches. I am so proud of what we accomplished together and will never forget that experience.
Our special, spazzy geopup has brought a lot of joy into our lives. She can be pretty hyper and crazy but I wouldn’t trade her for any other dog. Rogue has traveled many miles with us. You can see all the caches she’s visited here: Going Rogue Rogue’s Trackable
Does your furry friend accompany you on your geocaching trips? Tell me about it in the comments! 🙂