If there’s one thing that has the potential to make a day on the slopes even more fun than craving fresh pistes or enjoying a hot drink around the fireplace in a chalet, it’s the view dog jumping happily over the snow. Dressed in their classic red vests emblazoned with the white ski patrol cross, they often look like the happiest creatures on the hill. But don’t be fooled; these are working dogs. Avalanche dogs help locate skiers and snowboarders buried in snow.

Many ski resorts in the western US employ a four-legged workforce alongside human ski patrollers for one reason: They excel at search and rescue, says Wasatch Backcountry Rescue (WBR) President Andy Van Houten. This is the non-profit organization that oversees the training and certification of avalanche dogs for 11 ski resorts in Utah.

And being better at finding buried skiers just outside resort boundaries or backcountry can mean lives saved during rescue or recovery missions (when an avalanche buried in the open is presumed dead) that ends quickly and gives them loved ones closure in hours instead of days.

Indeed, most of the missions these dogs do are, unfortunately, retrieval missions. This is due to the nature of backcountry skiing: Resorts conduct extensive avalanche mitigation efforts on their properties, but in the backcountry, avalanches are much more likely, so exploring these areas carries a much higher risk.

Furthermore, backcountry areas tend to be far from resorts and require a rescue team to assemble, fly a helicopter to the scene, and then locate not only where the avalanche occurred, but where in the snow a skier or snowboarder could be buried. This can take up to 60 minutes, Van Houten says.

Fortunately, rescue teams respond quickly, and if there is a dog on that team, searches can be over in minutes instead of days. During a particularly deadly avalanche season in Utah in 2018, Van Houten recalls a retrieval mission in which one of the well-trained dogs found a body within two and a half minutes. “Finding them with people would just have been days of work,” he explains.

That’s because WBR-certified avalanche dogs are nearly perfect search machines thanks to years of training, excellent snow agility, and an amazing sense of smell.

It all starts with training

Training begins when the dogs—usually labs, but occasionally other working dogs such as German shepherds or border collies—are puppies. They arrive at the resort they will call home for a large part of their working lives in September, just 49 days away, and are entrusted with a handler, a fancy name for an owner who will take care of their training as well as care for them like a beloved pet.

That first winter, they will spend the entire season acclimating to resort life and all the sights, sounds and smells that come with being a rescue dog. Handlers will ski with puppies in jackets, walk with them on phones, introduce them to fellow employees and resort guests, ride helicopters and introduce them to the sounds of explosives, the kind needed for avalanche mitigation and rescue.

By the end of the season, they will begin listening training and practice drills to develop their search and rescue drive. But if that sounds serious, don’t worry, there are a lot of games involved. In fact, Van Houten explains that puppies are taught how to find hidden people with a game: tug-of-war.

First of all, the dog is familiar with the human scent due to a lot of time spent with its handler. Then, in what Van Houten calls “escape drills,” the handler excites the dog, tells it to stay, runs, and hides, then when the dog is given the command “seek,” it must go and find its hidden handler . . When they do, they end up playing a game of tug with a toy in the handler’s pocket.

“It’s a great game of hide and seek for the dog,” says Van Houten. The training is similar to the principle Pavlov’s dog and classical conditioning: once trained, they hear the word “search,” which elicits a response (in this case finding a buried man) that they know results in a reward (a game they like).

As the dogs get better at the game, the handlers hide further away or in deeper holes, progressing to caves dug entirely under the snow. This is where the next advantage of animals comes in: the sense of smell.

Sniffing out danger

Dogs have a sense of smell extraordinarily impressivewhich makes them exceptional at finding people buried in snow. While researchers can’t seem to decide how much more sensitive dogs’ olfactory senses are than humans, it’s safe to say they’re better at locating drugs, bombs and people by smell alone than their bipedal companions, and that includes in the snow. mediums.

That’s because people release something called leather corksexplains Van Houten, which are the scent portion of the skin cells, at a rate of about 30-40 thousand every minute. These skin rafts are lighter than air, so they seep through the snow and collect on top of it in a kind of basin, he continued. As long as handlers can get their dogs into the scent zone, the dog will ping-pong around the zone until it finds its center, which is located directly above a buried skier.

“It’s impressive to watch,” says Van Houten. Even more impressive considering how fast the dogs can move across snowy landscapes.

Quick on their feet

Indeed, it is dogs’ agility that gives them their ultimate advantage. Because even if humans were able to sniff out these scented pools, they cannot skillfully navigate deep snow, especially when associated with avalanche debris such as downed trees, which is even more difficult to maneuver. Even equipped with snowshoes, it’s hard to move quickly when you’re diving into soft powder. Dogs have little trouble getting over and through it, as anyone who’s let their dog outside after the first snow of the season can attest.

As a bonus, dogs don’t need layers and layers of protective gear or specialized gear like humans do; they are durable and well equipped for inclement weather. “All of this makes them the ultimate avalanche rescue tool for those who don’t have a beacon,” says Van Houten.

Stay safe out there

Of course, if you’re heading into the mountains in the backcountry in the winter, whether it’s on skis, snowboards, or on foot, don’t just rely on these well-equipped and expertly trained animals to save your life. Instead, always carry a beacon, rescue tools like a probe and shovel, and consider equipment equipped with locating technology like RECCO’s. Along with the friendliest wet faces you’ll ever see on the slopes, they’ll help ensure a safe and enjoyable season.