[Mole_n_Opossum]

We had some problems with monthly application liquid tick/flea/fly preventative not working well. The vet informed me that I shouldn’t apply it right after a bath, as the dog’s natural oils help it spread uniformly over the animal. Instead, we should go three days before and after application without bathing. Some very basic and limited testing shows this to be the case for my labs.

Both Mole and I don’t venture out without boots, long socks, pants, long-sleeve over short-sleeve shirts, hats, and DEET spray. We spray our socks and pant cuffs, shirt cuffs, and any warm areas (such as armpits and where our legs meet our torsos). Shirt collars and hats are sprayed before the shirt is put on, as we don’t like a face-full of bug spray.

This usually stops ticks from crawling on us, but not always. We check the dogs after every cache hunt, not just after a day of hunting. This lets us comb out the buggers before they embed themselves, which is much easier than pulling them out later. This also keeps them from coming home with us and finding they don’t really like the tick repellent on the dogs, and then jumping off when in the house, potentially finding you without DEET applied.

We’ve never been able to stop 100% of the ticks 100% of the time. The preventative chemicals and clothing help a lot, but promptly checking our caching partners (dogs in the field, people in private) has kept us healthy.

[Mole_n_Opossum]

We almost never use the hints, and prefer to take advantage of the cache owner placing a challenging cache. Some caches that stand out are Cornered (GCN3V1) and New Park Basil (GCKKR3). Sometimes we just download waypoints to the GPS and have no idea what we’re looking for ( http://www.geekteck.com/~pointman/geocaching/m37atv/ ). Nope, our numbers aren’t in the hundreds, but we have a lot of fun and a story to tell on almost every find.

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