Fun All Year: Geocaching with Your Dog

If you get out of the house at all with your pooch, whether you walk city streets or hike the hundreds of miles of trails the Bay Area offers, here's an activity that will add a bit of spice to your day. It's called Geocaching, an online treasure hunt that you can play anywhere on Earth. With just a GPS receiver and a sense of adventure you can seek containers that have been hidden in places from the obvious to the remote. These containers, known as "geocaches", range in size from about a .45 caliber bullet all the way to a bucket. The main goal is to find these hidden stashes and sign the log book (or strip) included in each one. The adventurous Geocacher will also find various trinkets, and may leave his or her own "signature item" to prove the find. Here's how you do it:

*Get a GPS receiver. Most sporting goods or camping stores have them, or go online to Amazon.com

*Sign on to The Geocaching Official Web Site

*Create a free account. There is no charge to join, they just want to make sure you have a valid email address. Premium Memberships are paid and allow users to find "Member's Only" caches as well as paying for all the server space needed.

*Type your zip code into the "Seek A Geocache" area and look at how many there are in just a ten-mile radius!

*Print out the ones you want to find. Check the reviews other cachers have written for hints as to how easy it was to find, if it has been destroyed (or "Muggled" as we cachers say). Some more tech-savvy folks will interface the GPS with their computer and download all that info directly. It's up to you.

*Pick a starting point and try to keep your searches in a big circle to maximize searching time.

*Try to pick as many dog-friendly caches as possible. Briones Regional Park is chock-full of caches and it's off leash!

*Get out there and start cachin'!

When You Find A Cache

Practice your "Found It!" dance. Be sure to sign the log book. Take some swag if you want a souvenir. Be sure to hide the container as well (or better) than it was but put it back in the exact same spot. That's really important. Remember to record your find online when you get back. While sheer numbers may impress some folks, most of us feel that the pleasure is in the search itself. Here in the Bay Area there is a thriving community of Geocachers and they have get-togethers from time to time that are published on the site. Four of the top 20 "finders" in the world live right here, including Team Alamo, with over 31,000 caches found! My own family has the handle "Blue Blaze Irregulars", ranked 15,987th in the world with 606 finds. Bill the Dog is a very important member of the Team, having found two caches all by himself.

Geocaching is all-weather, mostly 24/7/365 fun for you and your dog. Once you get the hang of it you can even hide some caches yourself. Hope to see you out there!