Skiers And Boarders, An Avalanche Dog May Save Your LIfe

In the old days, if you were at a ski resort and got caught up in an avalanche and buried, you could well have been out of luck.

Even if someone witnesses the slide and reports it, this photo shows what ski patrollers see when they look up at an avalanche slide: A big, long pile of disturbed snow with no indication of where you might be buried.

Avalanche Slide - Is someone under that snow?

In the old days, the ski patrollers would line up across the slope and all march up while they poked poles into the snow in hopes of hitting a buried person before the person died, smothered by the snow. Unfortunately, the average person buried in an avalanche doesn't make it more than 20 minutes or so.

Today, however, every Tahoe resort has avalanche dogs on staff. If a patroller who has a trained dog sends it up the slope in the picture, the dog has an uncanny ability to find anyone buried by simply sniffing for the scent of humans.

If you're buried in an avalanche, hope this girl is nearby and given the command to find you!

A trained avalanche dog trots across the residue slide, searching for a scent. If they find it, they race to its source and start digging in the snow.

There is no machine, no imagining device, and no rescue technique that can do what a dog can do.

One more way that dogs are amazing.

Here is an article on the SFGate website about avalanche dog training. Avalanche Dogs