cooleycr said:
Each to his own, I am sure that dogs do have a fun time in caves (horizontal ones at least, if I knew someone who took a dog on a vertical trip, I would be contacting the authorities!),
Please don't hear me as saying you are not allowed your own opinion - I just wish to point out it seems you base the opinion on a lot of very false assumptions.
No one forces their dog to cave, or to be on rope, or to go hiking, or <insert activity here>. Well, no one worth a damn.
As for vertical, considering a lot of SAR teams that utilize dogs have them trained (at least in vertical / mountainous areas) to a life safety vertical harness so they *can* get their dog over the terrain, quite sure many a dog is perfectly happy with it. In the same way that no one puts their human friend in a harness and shoves them over a cliff or down a hole, neither do dog trainers. A human you get them used to the harness, have them sit in it get it adjusted and feel comfy on a training tower, then maybe rappel and climb the tower, and slowly do harder and harder caves/cliffs. The same with dogs. Step one is simply shaping them to accept the harness - and most get very exciting when their working harness comes out because it means FUN! (maybe I need to record the start of one our searches so you can see how bouncy happy the dogs get!) Then you work on getting them used to feeling the harness hold their weight. Then you start working on some very short and gradually longer drops.
Think about this logically for a bit: A dog not happy in their harness will flail. A flailing dog is a dangerous dog - to themselves and the people. A dog flailing is also fearful, and a in context of working dogs, a fearful dog cannot what? Do their job they were trained for! And lots of dogs DO need a job. That's kinda what a working dog is. Dogs that need to be able to be dropped in from helicopters - which perhaps is less common in the UK but out in the mountains here it is quite common to start closer to the last known point, also need to be good with being in a life safety harness.
Of course dogs trained to this level is not your pet dog norm, but considering a lot of cavers are also rescuers there is high likelyhood of crossover (as this thread has shown). This isn't Sam shoving Fido into a backpack and going down a cave, that won't end well for anyone but it's not the dog it's the idiot person. Which goes back to my point of basically "dont be an idiot" and each case is unique.
Anyway...here is my dog comfortably wearing her life safety harness. Notice relaxed face, easy eyes, forward relaxed ears, soft eyes. This is doggie language for "this is fine".
And I also don't see anything wrong with people having fun with their dog outdoors above or underground as long as conservation and basic safety is met, same as with any human. The thing to remember is dogs have a bell curve of "extreme" skills like humans do. People get upset about all the things
Jumpy does but Jumpy is a highly trained highly athletic highly fit dog, notice the incredibly good form and muscle tone.
Anyway. Have fun with your dog, within your and your dog's abilities, and all will be good with the world. If that is SAR, parkour, hiking, backpacking, caving...be safe, don't be stupid, conserve, and have fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5h96AVj39c