I'd love to be a dog for a day !

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Apr 13, 2007
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I'll get to the dog thing shortly !

Anyway I decided to test out an idea that I'd had in my head and that was to fill a small tin with fatwood dust, Magnesium dust and small bits of rubber inner tube to be used as an emergency firestarter in wet conditions.
It had been raining most the night and it was still coming down today so what better chance to try out my idea:

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Once in the woods I was immediately aware of the pungent smell of Skunk Cabbage, I love the smell of this stuff nearly as much as the smell of fatwood.....yeah I know I'm odd !

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And talking of smells this is where I began to notice my dogs ! They just never stop sniffing !!!! I'm pretty sure that dogs see more with their noses than they do with their eyes.It must be almost like the different world we see when looking through heat vision goggles, dogs must build up a whole new vision of the place by the smells they detect.How awesome would it be if we could do the same !!!

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I tried sniffing at a few of the places my dogs did but I'm afraid to say it all smelled pretty much the same to me !

I came across this spot where a squirrel had been dining, I guess this discarded pine cone must be his equivalent of us leaving the bones from last nights Kentucky !

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I decided to try out my Fire-starter:

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It lit on my 3rd strike:

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I was dissapointed to find it only burned for 4 minutes. I'm thinking this is because air could not circulate underneath ! Maybe a fatwood/Magnesiun mix could be sealed into a section of inner tube so it could be cut open when needed.Air would be able to circulate better and there would be more rubber for a longer burn !

Found lots of these hershey kisses lying around:

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Also found lots of Hendersons shooting stars:

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Snicker was stopped in her tracks by this angry looking mob, we decided to head back quickly !

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Dogs can smell 20,000 times better than humans. Humans do not have a sense as powerful as thier sense of smell. Dog's brains are wired 70% for smell.
 
Hey, those arent Hershey kis... na, never mind...:)

When I used to lead kids into the woods I would get up EARLY on the 3rd day or so and take some specially packed chocolate covered raisins up the trail to make a nice pile.

As we hiked I would tell the kids about how to learn from animal scat LOL.... You see where this is going...

About that time we would come to a large pile of "droppings"... I would pick some up.. smell it... lol... and yes, eat some. LOL All in the name of "learning all I could about the animals". Kids would FREAK out LOL.

My wife worked at the camp to. She would always ask if I got "the right pile" lol... now THAT would have been funny! But yea, always got the RIGHT ones.
 
i hear ya on the dogs' noses.

their ears are helpful too - that's why i love pointy-eared dogs, you can tell exactly what's on their minds and the nature of what's out there usually.

it's saved me some trouble on more than one occasion.

vec
 
Great pics. It is good to have dogs around, they usually pick up on everything before we do. No wonder you'd like to be one ;)
 
i like the idea of the quick starter i just finished filling an altiods tin with fatwood shavings and curls so i have one less thing to do should it be pouring rain
 
Think there is some merit in having some ready to use tinder on hand. Whether that bit little bits of birch bark stored in a tin or pre-ground fatwood or a wet fire tab that can be smashed and powder lit. I always have piece of fatwood on hand, but you are still making assumptions about your ability to shave that fatwood or to slice it thin enough to accept a flame from a match source. Nice to have a little bit of stuff that works as is.
 
Think there is some merit in having some ready to use tinder on hand. Whether that bit little bits of birch bark stored in a tin or pre-ground fatwood or a wet fire tab that can be smashed and powder lit. I always have piece of fatwood on hand, but you are still making assumptions about your ability to shave that fatwood or to slice it thin enough to accept a flame from a match source. Nice to have a little bit of stuff that works as is.

i always test it first and i always carry my tinder kit as well just in case
 
Nice pics. I'd like to be Snicker for a day. I could get up to a load of mischief and then get pampered by Mrs Pit.
 
i've always heard that magnesium shavings are fairly unstable on their own and that i should always keep it in bar form. this true?
 
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