The Context Machine

Dogs have long been welcome on the mystical white sands of southern New
Mexico. When America’s space age began at White Sands Missile Range with the firing of a Tiny Tim test booster on September 26, 1945, it was important to retrieve small missile parts to analyze success or failure. These searches routinely wasted countless man-hours as ground recovery crews scoured vast expanses of desert for often-buried missile fragments.

That ended in 1961 with the introduction of the Missile Dogs: Dingo, a
Weimaraner, and Count, a German Shorthair. For up to a year before firing,
important components of a missile were sprayed with squalene, a shark-liver oil
that the dogs could smell from hundreds of feet away.

After a missile firing, Dingo and Count raced among the sands sniffing out the
scent objects. With a 96% recovery rate, the program was so successful that other
military and scientific agencies requested the services of the original Missile Dogs of
White Sands.

Today you can hike with your dog anywhere in the giant sandbox that is White
Sands National Monument. The world’s largest gypsum sand dunes form when
gypsum dissolves in nearby mountains during rainstorms. Instead of being carried
off by a river (this is an arid environment) wind transports the crystals where they
accumulate in brilliantly white sand dunes.

White Sands offers 6.2 miles of marked dog-friendly trails but there is no need
to limit your explorations. Any dune is open to a canine hike. Stay alert for reptiles
and rodents scampering on the dunes that have adapted to the white sands and are
now a funny bleached white color.

During the heat of summer, try a night hike - when the moon is full, the park,
located in New Mexico on U.S. Highway 70 between Alamogordo and Las Cruces,
stays open until midnight. The desert cools off then and the sands are haunting by
moonlight.

I am the author of over 20 books, including 8 on hiking with your dog and the
widely praised The Canine Hiker’s Bible. As publisher of Cruden Bay Books, we
produce the innovative A Bark In The Park series of canine hiking books found at
http://www.hikewithyourdog.com Articles in the Doggin’ America series of dog-
friendly parks can be found at http://www.DogginAmerica.com During the warm
months I lead canine hikes for hikewithyourdog.com tours, guiding packs of dogs
and humans on hiking adventures. Tours, ranging from one-day trips to multi-day
explorations, visit parks, historical sites and beaches. My lead dog is Katie, a
German Shepherd- Border Collie mix, who has hiked in all of the Lower 48 states
and is on a quest to swim in all the great waters of North America - http://web.mac.com/crudbay/iWeb/Katies%20Blog/Katies%20Quest.html