Tuesday, October 27, 2009

ORIENT-what-ting?

I got soooo excited about the bully-sticks that I totally forgot to tell you about what happened before I got to taste that little bit of heaven.

OK, so on Saturday mornings we usually go for a hike over where the cows live. The hike is about 5 miles long and every time we go, I see something new and cool. A flock of giant turkeys. A skunk. Big black snakes. Brand new baby cows. All sorts of stuff.

Well, this time we saw packs of people sneaking around and acting really strange. They were walking in the creek, crawling around in sticker bushes - that kinda thing. After the whole Visitors scare, Brother Dutch was a lit-tle freaked out by people hiding in bushes and barked to scare them away. But the bush people weren't afraid. They were way too busy to care about Dutch's noise.

Clearly, they were on a mission. And that mission was
something called 'orienteering'. I know this because my human stopped and asked what everyone was doing in the bushes (I guess she didn't want us to freak out and pull another pond-jumping stunt).

One of the bush-people explained that orienteering is kinda like a treasure hunt. You (or your team) use this thing called a compass to find secret spots on a special map. There's no trail to follow (which explains the bush-people) it's just you, a map and the compass thingy. Whoever finds all the secret spots and gets to the finish line first, wins. The people who don't win still get to hike around and have fun.

I asked my human if we could try orienteering. She said only if we're allowed to bring something called a GPS. To keep us from getting lost, she told me. I told her I'm pretty sure you use the map & compass to keep from getting lost.

Exactly, she said.

15 comments:

Sandy said...

I'm with your mom!!

Stubby said...

Hi Puglet! My mom wants to do this orienteering thing but I don't think it's for me. If you use GPS it's like cheating and I don't want to cheat, so I'm out.

It's so cool that you take such long walks and see such neat stuff. I don't see much on my short walks except for the usual suspects.

Stubby xoxo

Ollie said...

Wow Puglet, you get to see cows every Saturday! Ive never seen a cow or a seal or a lobster but I keep an eye out for them now when I go for a walk. I've seen rabbits, foxes, possums and a deer once in someone's backyard. That poor guy was really lost and could have used a map and compass. Some special humans had to come with a truck and take him away to a place where deer hang out.

Anonymous said...

You always have such great adventures Puglet, we're jealous!!

Frodo

Anonymous said...

Puglet,
You are one lucky pug, always on adventures, and we love going along with you.... We're jealous, too

Your friend in South Carolina,
Rombo

Smushie Ranch said...

Hey Puglet,

This weekend, we had an event just like that. Except, it was a for a photo workshop being held so people had to follow coordinates and then take a picture once they found the right spot. We thought everyone was in town to take our picture, ya know because we're used to the paparazzi...

Mom said she thinks you'd have fun doing the photo event, and she's pretty sure you'd get to use the GPS thing.

xoxo
Stella and Gunther

Kimmy B said...

Hi Puglet and Dutch: Your human is so clever and talented and please thank her for making our lives happier. Here is my (Tink's) idea: She must write a children's book called "The Adventures of Dutch and Puglet". All of your photos are so beautiful and funny and like many of your readers, we are kind of like kids in that we don't mind reading it over and over coz' it's still funny each and every time. My mom reads it aloud to my dad and turns her computer thing to show him your pictures. I love to see them so happy when they read your blog. So I think there are trillions of children who would love your book and they would read it over and over and over.

THE PUGLET said...

Rabbits, foxes, possums and a deer? Wow Ollie, I've never seen any of those. And I never knew there were special trucks for helping deer.

Canada sounds SO cool!

THE PUGLET said...

Oooh, Stella & Gunther --

My human is all excited about the camera-treasure hunt event thingy you saw. She's going to see if they have events like that where we live, so maybe I'll get to orienteer after all :)

THE PUGLET said...

Holy cow poop, Tink!!!

You must be TOTALLY psychic! One of my human's latest 'projects' (code word for good ideas that never go anywhere) is writing a children's book... called 'The Adventures of Dutch & Puglet'!

She wrote all the words for one adventure/story but got stuck when it came time to draw the pictures. She had someone else try to draw me, but said I came out looking "disgruntled".

She said "The Disgruntled Puglet" wouldn't make a very good book for kids and then I guess he gimpy brain kinda forgot about it. Thanks for reminding us - my human likes your idea of just using camera pictures :)

Kimmy B said...

I know! This is crazy cosmic stuff, huh? Hey, if your human likes to read books on pugs, my mom has 3 that are funny. The names are: 'Postcards from the Pug Bus' - there are 7 pugs in this one family and it's hysterical reading and my favorite, 'Pugs in Public' and 'Clara, The Early Years'. Ummm...I gotta go coz' Dancing with the Stars is coming on and I gotta get a seat on the coach next to mom. Hey, have you seen Rescue Ink on the National Geographic Channel? These big scary looking men are really good men out there saving dogs from mean people who do bad things to animals. Bye for now.... Tink

Ollie said...

Yes! Yes! Yes! A series of children's books chronicling the adventures of Puglet and Dutch with your human's beautiful photography is a brilliant idea. But Pug, your human has so many lovely pictures and interesting stories to tell, maybe a book for grown up humans, as well?

Anonymous said...

Hey puglet,

I do something like this with my human - it's called "geocaching" and you have to use a gps. I've gotten really good ad sniffing out the hidden caches - one of them had a dog toy in it. Pretty cool huh? I't alot of fun, but sometimes the walks are long. Ask your freind google about it.

Scamper

THE PUGLET said...

I told my human about the book ideas & she likes the idea of making me into a book (she loves books & loves me, so why not?).

I also found out she's been working on a pretty cool top-secret project. She promised I could tell you all about it next week :)

THE PUGLET said...

Hey Scamper,

Google filled me in on Geocaching -- sounds cool! Brother Dutch is very good at sniffing out dead stuff and cow poop, I bet he'd be really good at finding caches. We're definitely going to try it.